HOW TO EDUCATE 



FEELINGS OR AFFECTIONS, 



BRING THE DISPOSITIONS, ASPIRATIONS, AND 

PASSIONS INTO HARMONY WITH SOUND 

INTELLIGENCE AND MORALITY. 

BY 

EDITED, WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION, 






BY 



NELSON SIZER, of New York, 

AUTHOR OF *'hOW TO TEACH;" '' CHOICE OF PURSUITS," ETC., ETC. 



1(^36 t A 



I U 



NEW YORK: 
S. R. WELLS & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

737 BROADWAY. 
1880, 



^\ 






Copyright, 1879, by 
S. R. WELLS & COMPANY. 



Edward O. Jenkins, 
Printer, 20 N. William St., New York. 



/ 



CONTENTS, 



$o 



SECTION I. 

PAGE 

MENTAL CONSTITUTION, .--.-. 17 

SECTION 11. 
THE SELF-PROTECTING FEELINGS : 

The Education of each Feeling considered Sepa- 
rately. 
alimenti\neness — appetite. ------ 2.2 

combativeness, -"" 3^ 

Destructiveness, --------37 

Secretiveness, --- 42 

acquisitrteness, --.-----50 

constructiveness, -- 55 

Cautiousness, ---------59 

Love of Life, -------- 64 

THE SELF-REGARDING FEELINGS: 

Self-Esteem, - -66 

Love of Approbation, 71 

THE SOCIAL AFFECTIONS: 

Amativeness, - - - - 87 

Philoprogenitiveness, - - - - - - 91 

Adhesiveness, -^ 99 



6 Contents, 

THE MORAL FEELINGS : 

PAGE 

Conscientiousness, - - 103 

Benevolence, ^-- 117 

Conscientiousness and Benevolence, - - - 120 

THE .ESTHETIC FEELINGS : 

Ideality, 127 

THE RELIGIOUS FEELINGS: 

Veneration, - - - i34 

Hope, - - - -"- - -- - - i44 

Spirituality — Wonder, ------ 149 

FEELINGS WHICH GIVE CONCENTRATION, POW- 
ER, OR PERMANENCE TO THE OTHERS: 

CONCENTRATIVENESS AND InHABITIVENESS, - - - 154 

Firmness, - - --.- - - -- i59 
Imitation, --- 165 

MiRTHFULNESS — ThE FeELING OF THE LUDICROUS, - 169 

Authority and Obedience, 17^ 

Temper, - i77 

Punishment, - - - - - - - - -180 

Manners, --------- 183 

Example, -_-- 185 

SECTION III. 

THE CONNECTION OF MIND WITH ORGANIZA- 
TION. THE SUBJECTIVE AND THE OBJECTIVE, 191 

SECTION IV. 
THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES, - - - - 205 
CONCLUSION, - - - • - • • . ^ 216 



PEEFACE 

TO THE AMEEICAlSr EDITION. 



The Education of the Feelings through the care- 
ful study of the brain was a field uncultivated previous 
to the discovery of Gall and Spurzheim. Several valu- 
able treatises have since been given to the world in the 
endeavor to set forth the nature and action of all the 
mental powers, including the propensities, and how to 
lead them to automatic rectitude of action. Without 
an intimate acquaintance with every faculty, we can not 
hope to guide and regulate their forces. So long as 
the whole realm of passion is regarded by mankind, not 
as a set of faculties to be studied and governed, but as 
a single malign force, the inspiration of the prince of 
evil, or the inheritance of " total depravity," to be re- 
pressed by fear or uprooted by punishment, the pas- 
sions, like volcanic fire, will continue to burn and con- 
sume their possessors, if they do not break forth into 
an open conflagration of crime. And thus the race 
goes on bemoaning crime, and helplessly exclaiming, 
" O Lord, how long?" Penalties may be enacted and 
severe punishment enforced by courts, but these do not 

a) 



8 Prefaoe to the AmeriGan Edition, 

toucli the source of crime. So long as character de- 
pends on organization, and organization can be affected 
by training and habit, good and bad, reform can not be. 
achieved by punishment, but must come from better 
culture, not of the intellect merely, but of the faculties 
which are concerned in passion or propensity, and in 
their abuse which leads to crime. 

The importance of education can not be overesti- 
mated. Our pulpits, presses, and schools, which are 
the pride and blessing of our land, tend to show how 
much the race feels the need of improvement, and how 
much it is willing to do to raise from age to age the 
common level of human life. A moment's reflection 
will show that efforts in the direction of education have 
been mainly applied to the culture of the intellectual 
and moral feelings, while penalty and repression have 
been the chief means employed for the control of hu- 
man passion and propensity. Men have become wise 
in science, able to master the great agencies of nature; 
but the turbulent passions within themselves have been 
little understood, except by the devastation and misery 
which have marked and marred the pathway of human 
progress and power. 

A better day has dawned. The science of man is 
being studied, and ten thousand families, being dis- 
couraged in vain endeavor to control the propensities 
of their children, or to understand their own, are eagerly 
inquiring for the light which Phrenology would throw 
upon this first place of human need and human im- 
provement. 



Preface to the Avierwan Edition, 9 

This work, by a countryman of George and Andrew 
Combe, is berc presented as an aid in " The Education 
of tbe Feelings/' and it has the special advantage of 
being based on a scientific analysis of the human facul- 
ties. Its expositions are so clear and plain that "the" 
common people," without generous culture, yet anxious 
to train their children for honor and immortality, can 
understand and adopt its teachings. 

The Notes and Illustrations, it is hoped, will give 
additional interest to the text, and it is believed that 
the publishers are conferring a favor on their country 
by transferring from our fatherland a work so rich in 
possibility of benefit. 



AMERICAN EDITOR. 



PEEFACE 

TO LOISTDOI^ EDITIOlSr, 



Education has been correctly defined as the develop- 
ing and perfecting of all our faculties. Without a defi- 
nite and systematic knowledge of the human faculties, 
education in this sense is evidently impossible, and the 
tirae has arrived when, as a science, it must be insepa- 
rably blended with mental philosophy. Yague gener- 
alities ought no longer to be- tolerated, but we ought to 
be able to state exactly what we wish to do — what we 
would have or not have : what feelings or intellectual 
faculties are, in individual cases, weak and require 
cherishing ; what are too strong and require repressing ; 
and what feehngs especially we should wish to pre- 
dominate in the character. The knowledge to guide 
us in these particulars is at present very vague and un- 
satisfactory, and based more upon custom and tradition 
than upon science. It is the aim of this work to give 
a more systematic direction to our inquiries in this de- 
partment, and we have to ask the indulgence of our 
readers for the dry nomenclature which always attends, 
more or less, on attempts at classification. 

With respect to the management of children, no very 

definite rules can be laid down, all children requiring 

11 



12 Preface to London Edition, 

different treatment aceordins; to the difference of tlieir 
dispositions ; and tliere is but one great rule invariably 
applicable — viz., to be ourselves what we would wish 
our children to be. Precept, without this, is compara- 
tively useless ; children's minds are fed and formed by 
the mental atmosphere which surrounds them ; if we 
are selfish, they wdll become so too ; if our morality and 
religion are little more than deference to public opin- 
ion, we mnst not expect that any higher feeling than 
love of applause will be developed under our guidance. 
We may more easily deceive ourselves in the knowl- 
edge of our own dispositions than we can deceive chil- 
dren, who, with their bright, intuitive vision, early learn 
to distinguish between truth and shams. So soon as 
children are intrusted to us, a kind of second education 
commences in ourselves : all that we say, do, and even 
feel, is imitated — ^we see the reflex of ourselves in oth- 
ers, and, startled into consciousness by the fac-simile, 
for the first time we begin to inquire what we are, and 
what we ought to be. In the course of our own early 
training, our immature powers were incapable of re- 
flecting upon the nature of the different feelings which 
influenced us ; but now, when we have to direct others, 
we feel that a correct analysis of the character is neces- 
sary. The object of the present volume is not so much 
to assist in the direct education of children, as in this 
second education of ourselves; to aid self-knowledge 
and self-development : or, if it were not thought too 
ambitious, we might say, that we aim at supplying a 
new system of moral philosophy, based upon an analy- 



Prefdce to London EdiUon. 13 

sis of the use and abuse of each faculty, and its direc- 
tion to its proper and legitimate objects. 

If we would ascertain the purposes for which God 
has formed us, we must study the nature of the facul- 
ties with which lie has endowed us, and make use of 
each faculty in the direction for which its nature shows 
it was evidently intended. 

In our scheme, what Dr. WheweU calls dejpendent 
and independent morality, that is, the "intuitive" sys- 
tem and that based upon " utility," are blended, neither 
being able to act without the other. Thus we find in 
nature certain primitive impulses which make us wish 
to be kind to others ; to respect and venerate whatever 
is great and good ; and to do on all occasions what is 
right, irrespective of consequences, that is, at " what- 
ever cost of pain and loss ; " but these feelings, however 
strong, in no way indicate what is kind, or great and 
good, or right ; of themselves they are mere blind im- 
pulses, as likely to go wrong as right, requiring, there- 
fore, the direction of the reason. Keason requires a 
rule for its guidance, and aU systems, even that of Dr. 
WheweU himself, are ultimately driven to " utility," or 
the " Greatest Happiness Principle," for this rule. It 
is, comparatively, of no use to feel the desire to do 
what is right, unless we know what is right, and it is 
of little use knowing what is right, without the desire 
to do it. 

Mr. Buckle, in his surprising work on the History of 
Civilization, evidently confounds the knowledge of 
what is right with the desire to do it, that is, Moral 



14 Preface to London Edition. 

Principle with Moral Feeling ; and because the first 
have undergone little change for the last three thousand 
years, he underrates the influence of moral y*^^Zm^ on 
the progress of Civilization. He says, " In reference to 
our moral conduct, there is not a single principle now 
known to the most cultivated Europeans, which was 
not likewise known to the ancients." This is very true, 
but the true progress of civilization is not marked by 
the progress of '' opportunity," or by any "improve- 
ment in external circumstances," or by the mere knowl- 
edge of moral principles, but by our increased disposi- 
tion to act in accordance with such principles. The 
far greater number of the actions of even the most 
reasonable, and almost all the actions of the mass of 
mankind, are vv^hat Hartley calls automatic, that is, 
involuntary — the product of feeling, not of intellect. 
Mr. Buckle says, '' The child born in a civilized land is 
not likely, as such, to be superior to one born among 
barbarians; and the difference which ensues between 
the acts of the two children will be caused, so far as we 
know, solely by the pressure of external circumstances ; 
by which I mean the surrounding opinions, knowledge, 
associations — in a word, the entire mental atmosphere 
in which the two children are respectively nurtured." 
Now this is altogether opposed to fact, and the source 
of this and of almost all of Mr. Buckle's errors of prin- 
ciple lies in his not giving sufficient importance to the 
fact of the connection of mind with organization, and 
to his appearing altogether to ignore what is equally 
proved, that the strength of mind both in thinking 



Preface to London Edition. 15 

and feeling, is in proportion to the size and quality of 
the material organ with which it is connected ; conse- 
quently, if the moral organs be small, moral feelings 
will be weak, and the moral manifestation or action 
will be weak in proportion, whatever the pressure of 
external circumstances or the mental atmosphere in 
which the child is nurtured. Mr. Buckle, however, ad- 
mits " that it may be, owing to some physical causes 
still unknown, the average capacity of the brain is, if 
we compare long periods of time, becoming gradually 
greater ; and that therefore the mind, which acts through 
the brain, is, even independently of education, increas- 
ing in aptitude and in the general competence of its 
views." " Such, however," he says, " is still our igno- 
rance of physical laws, and so completely are we in the 
dark as to the circumstances which govern the hered- 
itary transmission of character, temperament, and other 
personal peculiarities, that we must consider this alleged 
progress as a very doubtful point." We think, should 
Mr. Buckle's attention ever be turned to the discoveries 
of Gall and Spurzheim, he will find that they were not 
quite so much in the dark on this subject of hereditary 
tendencies as he appears to be ; that the law for our 
guidance is, that exercise increases mental power and 
increases the size of the material organ, and that that 
increased size and aptitude are transmitted, not in 
" long periods of time," but from generation to gener- 
ation, and that the advance of civilization is more prop- 
erly measured by such increased mental power than by 
the " opportunities " and circumstances surrounding it. 



THE EDUCATION 

OP THE 

Feelings, or Affections. 



SECTION I. 

MENTAL CONSTITUTION. 



The education of the feelings, or formation of the 
dispositions, is a part of education which has been com- 
paratively neglected; not so much because its impor- 
tance has not been recognized, as because the too 
general want of definite knowledge concerning the 
affections and the moral springs of action has pre- 
vented its being pursued systematically. 

The objection of this branch of education is the 
cultivation, by exercise, of tliose feelings which make 
us wish to do that which we ought to do. The mere 
knowledge of our duty, without the disposition to per- 
form it, is of little use, or at most, but one small step 
gained ; and yet, education, conducted as a system, has 
commonly stopped short at this point. Food is abso- 
lutely necessary to support life, but it is a question 
whether the mere knowledge of this would always be 
suflficient to induce us to take nourishment, if l^ature 
had not endowed us with a strong desire to eat when 
requisite. The wants of our moral nature being less 
obtrusive, the laws which govern them are not so well 
understood; and yet it is equally certain that, with re- 
spect to religion and morality, that is, our duties to 



7 



18 The Education of the Feelings. 

God and our neighbor, the Creator has not been satis- 
tied with merely telling us what we ought to do, but 
has also implanted feelings — such as love and reverence 
toward Himself, the moral sense, benevolence — which 
make us desire to perform the duties which His laws 
have pointed out to us. With this difference, that 
while the animal appetite is a full-grown instinct from 
the first, these incipient germs of our higher nature 
may, without watchful culture, lie undeveloped. 

•The cultivation and training of the feelings bear the 
^ame relation to happiness, as the observance of the 
laws for the due regulation of the bodily system bear 
to health ; and for the proper management of the feel- 
ings it is quite as necessary to know what they are, as 
it is to know the functions of the different organs of 
the body ; and as important to treat each mental faculty 
separately, as to distinguish the heart from the lungs, 
the lungs from the liver ; so that we may not apply our 
remedies to one organ when the disease is in another. 

It is the province of mental philosophy to show what 
are the functions of the mind, to explain the manner 
in which they act, and their adaptation and relation to 
external objects. No such analysis of our mental con- 
stitution has been generally received, neither is it com- 
monly understood that such is essential in education. 
But if education be a method of treatment of the 
mental faculties, how can it possibly be adapted to their 
direction unless we know the nature of these faculties, 
and their mode of action? Experience may have 
enlightened us a little here and there as to the best 
method of treating some of them ; but the character 
of this knowledge has hitherto much resembled that 



Mental Constittition. 10 

of the quack practitionerj who having discovered a 
remedy for one disease, although ignorant of the nature 
of both remedy and disease, applies it to the cure of 
all. The little light that has been gained from expe- 
rience, can never be properly systematized and applied 
to education, until the nature of our mental constitu- 
tion be understood. 

A parent is apt to think that the knowledge he pos- 
sesses of his own disposition is sufficient for the guid- 
ance of the affections of his children ; but dispositions 
differ so widely, that we can not have a falser guide, in 
many instances, than to judge of others by ourselves. 
The precept " know thyself," is very partially obeyed, 
and the knowledge of self which is attained is gener- 
ally far too imperfect and indefinite to be applicable to 
the systematic training of the feelings. 

Natural Philosophy has of late made rapid strides, 
and vastly augmented the power of man over the 
physical world ; but because mankind have been unac- 
quainted with the relation that such results bear to the 
nature of mind, education is very much in the condi- 
tion it was before all this light shone upon us; conse- 
quently, the happiness of the world has not increased 
in a corresponding proportion with the multiplication 
of our comforts and conveniences. 

The clearest analysis of the mental constitution, and 
the most practical, is that presented by Phrenology. 
This is admitted even by metaphysicians, who are not 
disposed equally to admit that each mental faculty is in 
connection with separate parts or organs of the brain. 

Phrenology teaches, First : That the brain is the 
organ of mind. 



20 



The Education of the Feelings, 



Secondly: That it is not a single organ, but a con- 
geries or bundle of organs, manifesting a plurality of 
faculties; and 

Thirdly : That vigor of function bears a relation to 
the health, quality, and size of the organ. 

It results from this that the mind and body are so 
intimately related, that it is quite impossible to separate 
moral from physical training. Nevertheless, the greater 
part of our remarks will be found applicable to the 
subject, independent of the truth of the phrenological 
propositions. . 

The mental constitution may be thus divided. The 
feelings consist of 



THE SELF-PROTECTma 


THE MORAL. 


Alimentiveness. 


Conscientiousness. 


CoMBATIVEJSrieJSS. 


Benevolence. 


Desteuctiveness. 


THE ESTHETIC. 


Secretiveness. 


Ideality. 


"AcQmSITIVENESS. 


THE RELIGIOUS. 


Constructiveness. 


Yeneration. 


Cautiousness. 


Hope. 


The Love of Life. 


Wonder (or Spiritual- 




ity). 


THE SELF-EEGARDma 


Concentrative- ^ 


these 


Self-esteem. 


NESS or Con- 


faculties 


Love of Approbation. 


tinuity. 


may fur- 




Firmness. 


liloil 

equal aid 


THE SOCIAL. 


Imitation. 


to all. 


Amativeness. 


The Feeling of the Lu- 


PHILOPROGENmVENESS. 


dicrous (Mirthful- 


Adhesiveness. 


NESS). 





Mental Constitution. 21 

Of course it is not intended to assert that each of 
these faculties act separately in forming states of mind, 
but only that they constitute the principal ingredient 
— many of the other feelings necessarily mixing with 
them. 

To these must be added the intellectual faculties, 
consisting of : 

I. TUE EXTERXAL SeXSES. 

II. — The Perceptive Faculties. 

III. — The Reflective. 

I am sorry to use technical language which may bo 
repulsive to some readers, but the terms must be con- 
sidered as mere signs to which distinct ideas will be 
attached afterward. Every one possesses these facul- 
ties more or less developed, and their different com- 
bination in different persons constitutes the difference 
in individual character. Thus some are brave, some 
timid — some firm, others yielding — some proud, others 
modest, according as some faculty or group of faculties 
predominates. 

Each feeling will be treated of separately, showing 
its use in the mental constitution, and also its abuse, so 
that in moral training we may know what to aim at, 
and what to avoid. The faculties will then be consid- 
ered in groups, in order to appreciate the relative 
strength desirable for each to attain. 



SECTION II. 

THE EDUCATION" OF EACH FEELING OONSIDERED SEP- 
ARATELY. 

THE SELF-PROTECTING FEELINGS. 

ALIMENTIVENESS APPETITE. 

Appetite appears to belong more properly to pliysi- 
cal than to moral education, bnt it bears too strongly 
npon the latter, both in its use arid abuse, to be omitted 
here. 

The pleasures of taste are among the first sensations 
that a child experiences ; they assist essentially in form- 
ing the bond which unites it to the mother, its natural 
guardian and instructor; and from childhood to age, 
by their direct and reflected influence, add largely to 
the stock of human enjoyments. Let it not, therefore, 
be expected that children can be made to despise such 
pleasures; they can not, and they will not. Let us 
strive rather to give them a proper and healthy direc- 
tion. The body must be fed and its waste repaired, or 
the mind can not maintain its vigor ; and we have 
undoubted evidence that the intention of Nature with 
regard to man is that the lower propensities shall give 
impulse and strength to the higher. Indulgence of 
them beyond this point she does not fail to punish.* 



* Alimentiveness is really the first mental element which 
comes into action, and, in the case of some idiots, seems to 

(22) 




JOSEPH HICKSON. 

ALIMENTIVENESS. 



Note.— The Frontispiece 



PLATE !1. 
will aid the reader in locating all the organs. 



AUmentiveness, 23 

Then let attention to this rule be a point of con- 
science with children. Eating is of the first importance, 
and so is the management and direction of the appe- 
tite, both as regards quantity and quality. As to quan- 
tity, children should be early taught to judge for them- 
selves. Let them be instructed to discriminate between 
their feelings after a wholesome, moderate, but sufii- 
cient meal, and those which follow excess, either in 
quantity or quality. Let a feeling of shame and self- 
be the only one ever awakened. The infant child or ani- 
mal, at the beginning of conscious life, experiences the 
sense of hunger, and blindly, but instinctively seeks food. 
With the taking of food there is not only exquisite pleas- 
ure, but it supplies the necessary means of growth, and 
the recuperation of the system when it is exhausted by ex- 
ercise. Hence the sense of hunger impels the eater to seek 
food at any cost of time and labor. Without the monitions 
of Alimentiveness in the form of appetite or hunger, men 
would be too busy with pleasure or profit to think of food, 
or to spend the time or money to procure it; and among 
the bad results would be an unhealthy irregularity in the 
taking of food both as to time and quantity, and illness 
and wasting of the system. We have known some persons 
who are so exceptionally deficient in the development of 
this propensity, that they forget to eat when much occu- 
pied with business. Finding themselves tired, weak, or 
faint, they have wondered what was the matter, until hap- 
pening to think, or perhaps by the suggestion of a friend, 
they were reminded that they had not dined. Such men 
will carry a lunch to the forest or field and sometimes 
forget to eat it, or that they have it, until they pick up 
their things to go home. The Creator has wisely implant- 
ed this useful monitor in men and animals to insure the 
necessary supply of food, and has also kindly attached to 
its exercise the reward of exquisite gratifi^tion. 



M The Education of the Feelings. 

reproach be associated with the suffering which results 
from over-eating, or from improper food. Let them be 
commiserated for the wrong they have committed, not 
for its consequences ; and let it be shown how future 
privation must follow present improper indulgence. It 
is better for them to learn thus to judge wisely for 
themselves, than be restricted to a certain allowance, 
which not even the most careful parent can at all times 
apportion to their real requirements. JS"ature will do 
this if her indications be attended to; and children 
must be taught to understand and obey them. Never 
let it be forgotten that in this, as in all cases, it is the 
object of education to teach a child to decide wisely for 
himself not only when under the control of parents and 
instructors, but in all circumstances, and in all places. 
Who has not admired the well-trained child, patiently 
waiting his turn to be served, however hungry he 
may be, quietly taking what is set before him ; and 
although without any nursery mentor at his elbow, 
firmly resisting the temptation to gormandize and the 
injudicious kindness of " Oh, you must have a piece 
more ! Only a little piece, there's a dear ! " " This 
cam, not hurt you, I am sure ! " 

To insure a healthy appetite, children should enjoy 
fresh air, and bodily exercise in plenty ; not only by 
regular walks out of doors, but by active cheerful play 
within ; they should have a place appropriated to their 
use, where they may jump, and skip, and exhale the 
exuberance of their spirits, without annoyance to the 
sober members of the family. Their meals should be 
regular, and not too far apart ; their diet nutritious, 
simple, but not^too unvaried. A constant sameness of 



AUme7itweness. So 

food sometimes produces a distaste wliicli, of itself, 
causes a longing for forbidden food, arising from the 
craving of nature for variety. Within wholesome lim- 
its it is desirable that their palates should be gratified 
in the choice of food for them ; their inclinations will 
not then be so readily excited to improper indulgence. 
A child should be allowed to eat only at meal-times, 
with very slight exceptions, which a sensible mother 
will know how to make; such as giving a piece of 
bread to divide the time between breakfast and dinner, 
if it be too long. How frequently do we sec this rule, 
one of the simplest for the preservation of health, 
broken, and digestion continually disturbed by the in>. 
troduction of fresh food ! A child cries — it is pacified 
with something eatable. Sometimes the child, more 
sensible than its nurse, turns away its head, and resists 
the unseasonable offer, until coaxed into overcoming its 
natural reluctance — '^ because it is so nice." 

A common practice seems to be to make the enjoy- 
ment of eating the grand ultimatum. It is held out as 
the strongest inducement to " behave well ; " it is the 
promised reward of obedience ; it is the convenient 
resource of the nurse " to keep the child quiet ; " it is 
the bribe of the friendly visitor to gain the child's at- 
tention ; it must furnish occupation to the child when 
its restless attempts to acquire a knowledge of things 
around it are troublesome. The very infant's tears are 
assuaged by anticipations of the "nice pudding" that 
is coming ; its own impatience is heightened by the 
affected, impatience of the nurse, who excites instead of 
allaying the eagerness for selfish gratification. If in 
addition to all this, children continually see their elders 



26 TliG Education of the Feelings, 

taking anxious '^ thought what they shall eat, and what 
they shall drink,'' can it be wondered at, that they 
should over-rate the importance of the pleasures of ap- 
petite, and that such lessons should be seldom unlearned 
in after-life ? 

Sweetmeats and other delicacies are indeed a com- 
mon reward for the good deeds, and the denial of them 
a common punishment for the sins of childhood. The 
mischief arising from this is not only the training of 
children to be gluttons and epicures, which it must in- 
fallibly do by making the gratification of the palate of 
such paramount importance ; but a greater evil is to be 
dreaded — the weakening of the moral sense by supply- 
ing an unworthy and temporary motive to obedience 
when a higher one alone can be adequate and perma- 
nent. An example may illustrate this. " Mrs. was 

very anxious (as every right-minded mother must be) 
that her child should be rehgious, and no pains were 
spared to make him so, as will appear. The boy (not 
four years old) was brought down to dessert. In due 
course the nurse came in to take him to bed, when this 
conversation took place : Mamma. — ^ Say your prayers, 
my darling.' Boy. — ^ I won't.' M. — ' Oh, yes — now 
l)e good. ShovvT Miss such-an-one how prettily you can 
say your prayers.' (Silent, pouting lips). M. — ^ Come 
now, you don't know what grandmamma has for you.' 
Boy. — ' What ? ' M. — ' An orange.* Grandmamma. — 
* There's Shamrock (the dog) now, make haste, or we'll 
get Shamrock to say pretty prayers.' M. — ' Yes, dear, 
now do — because of the orange, you know.' Will it 
be believed that this chattering had the desired effect 
upon the boy ? Worked upon by greediness and van- 



A Umentiveness, 27 

ity, he lisped the Lord's Prayer in a sulky, muttering 
manner, was called a good boy, and went to bed, but 
without the orange. Wlien he asked for it, ' to-mor- 
row ' was the answer. Here were lessons in plenty ; 
here, in five minutes, were inculcated impressively 
greediness, stupid surrender of the nnderstanding, 
vanity, lying, and hypocrisy."^ Lessons — little needed, 
for where from original constitution or from early mis- 
management the selfish feelings are strong, they will 
produce such fruits in abundance, unless counteracted 
by assiduous moral culture. The constant recurrence 
of the temptations to the abuse of appetite, render it 
in such cases difficult to manage, but that well-edu- 
cated children can and do control it by opposing to it 
the moral feelings is daily proved. Dr. Johnson de- 
scribes '^ politeness" as consisting in giving no prefer- 
ence to oneself ; and I have seen a child choose the 
smallest orange, the least rosy apple, the most uninvit- 
ing corner of cake, and leave for his companions the 
nicest piece, the finest fruit — and this unconscious of 
any observing eye. 

It is much to be doubted whether very young chil- 
dren, under the age of five or six, should be obliged to 
keep silence at meals, and not ask for what they want. 
" Sit still ; do not ask, and you will have what is proper 
for you," is very well at a more advanced age, when 
children are able to judge of and appreciate the pro- 
priety and justice of such restrictions as applied only 
to themselves and not to those about them. In young 
children let everything be expressed, let the mind be 



* Monthly Repository. 



28 The Education of the Feelings, 

clear as crystal. "What they shall eat is necessarily an 
object of great interest to children, and they look with 
eagerness and longing curiosity on the dishes before 
them. Let the child say his wish aloud, and by youi 
immediate refusal or acquiescence, put him out of all 
suspense about it as soon as possible. It is much easier 
to refuse what is improper at once than afterward, 
when you know the child has been many minutes look- 
ing and longing; a refusal then frequently excites a 
sense of injury and injustice which, had it been given 
at first and at once, it would not have done. Such re- 
fusals, however, should be as few as possible, as it is 
impossible to prevent children from considering it an 
" undue preference " for grown-up people to indulge 
in that which is denied to themselves, and thus early 
imbibing a lesson in selfishness."^ Much more atten- 
tion is due to dieting, that is, to a varied and whole- 



* If parents would refrain from having on the table arti- 
cles of food which are improper for children it would be 
better for themselves, and save a world of trouble. It 
would doubtless be better for parents to use nothing as 
food or drink which w^ould be injurious to children ten 
years old. Then daily habit, and the example of parents, 
would combine to establish in children usages in respect 
to appetite which would become as second nature. The 
cakes, candies and sweetmeats, which not a few parents 
permit children to eat, lay the foundation for nine-tenths 
of the sickness and death which are the terror and scourge 
of most families. The children of poverty who are obliged 
to live plainly, and to go barefoot and half clad, playing in 
the dirt and getting tanned in sunshine and wind, seem 
to be healthy, not because dirt and raggedness are sanitary 
blessings, but because their food is coarse and plain, and 



AUinentiveness. 39 

isome food, in proper quantities, than is ordinarily paid ; 
and when we consider how much the benevolent de- 
signs of Nature are frustrated in the perversion of this 
eating propensity, the waste of life, and happiness, and 
the amount of suffering it occasions, we may be held 
excused for dwelling so long upon its due exercise and 
restraint. Dr. William Sweetzer judiciously observes, 
that there exists a corresponding action between the 
moral feelings and the viscera; that the particular con- 
dition of the former may either determine, or be deter- 
mined by, that of the latter. Indigestion, for example, 
is well known to be sometimes the consequence, and 
sometimes the cause, of an irritable and unhappy tem- 
per. A som- disposition may either occasion, or result 
from a sour stomach. Thus, in some instances, we 
sweeten the stomach by neutralizing the acerbity 
of the temper, while in others we sweeten the 
temper by neutralizing the acidity of the stomach. 
Who has not felt his digestion improve under the 
brightening of. his moral feelings? And who has 
not experienced the brightening of his moral feel- 
ings imder the improvement of his digestion ? The 
reason will now be manifest why those children who 
are so unfortunate as to be indulged with cakes, pastry, 
sweetmeats, and the like indigestible articles, other 



the sunshine and air, with free exercise, give them consti- 
tutions, which the rich would gladly give tens of thousands 
to have transferred to their children. In despair they cry, 
why do these rough children of poverty live, and our favor- 
ites of fortune, with culture and distinction before them, 
fade and die ? Physiology and common sense, strangers 
often to wealth and pride, would answer. 



30 The Education of the Feelings. 

things being the same, require reproof or the rod so 
nnich oftener than those who are restricted to more 
plain and wholesome food. Indeed, an exclusive diet 
of bread and milk, united with judicious exercise in the 
open air, will often prove the most effectual means of 
correcting the temper of peevish and refractory chil- 
dren. 

The loss, physical and mental, resulting from the ab- 
surd habit of society with respect to the table ; by the 
three courses, and late dinners — the over-eating and 
drinking — will, perhaps, be better considered after it 
is determined what a man ought to be when all his 
higher powers are fully trained and developed. 



COMBATIYENESS. 



This feeling supplies natural or physical courage, 
but the word Oppositiveness, perhaps, .better points out 
the inherent feeling to which the above term is applied, 
namely, the opposition which rises in the mind when 
any obstacle to its desires presents itself. The world is 
full of difficulties and dangers, and the pathway to all 
that is really excellent is often so beset with obstacles, 
that in addition to moral courage and intellectual force, 
an instinct to do battle — a pleasure in overcoming dif- 
ficulties for its own sake, irrespective of the end to be 
attained, has been added. The attitude of defiance 
which the mind assumes by means of this faculty, har- 
monizes it, so to speak, with a rugged and difficult 
world. The feeling then requires directing rather 




EZRA CORNELL. 
COMBATIVENESS. 



' PLATE III. 



Corribativeness. 31 

than restraining. The judicious educator will not be 
so anxious to check the disposition to contend, as to 
provide it with a legitimate field of action ; he will en- 
deavor so to interest the other feelings and the intellect 
in pursuits high and excellent, and the whole force of 
the combative propensity may be brought to bear on 
the difficulties which must necessarily be encountered. 
In early childhood the deficiency of Oppositiveness is 
felt to be a happy circumstance ; the child is docile and 
tractable, takes a suggestion immediately, does as he is 
bidden, has no will of his own. Cause for congratula- 
tion, however, lessens every year. The least trifles dis- 
courage ; at lesson-time you are wearied v/ith the con- 
stant whining, ^' I can't do it;" and at play -time you 
are mortified to see one pursuit after another aban- 
doned at the slightest difficulty. The boy lacks cour- 
age and manly spirit to encounter and overcome. 

The love of contention and opposition for their own 
sake constitutes the abuse of the faculty; the proper 
management of it, therefore, when in excess, evidently 
consists in exciting its direct manifestation as little as 
possible. By the force of sympathy, the manifestation 
of Oombativeness in one person immediately arouses 
the feeling in another ; in children especially, the out- 
ward expression from another's mind is reflected as in 
a mirror. In seeking to correct a child this fact should 
never be lost sight of. If our tone be harsh and captious, 
the child's feelings will be arrayed against the reproof, 
instead of being softened into contrition. " Ton are 
so quoss ! " a little boy, pouting, said to his mother, 
who asked him to do something which did not fall in 
with his humor at the time. " Am I cross ? " replied 



32 The Education of the Feelings. 

she, in a tone the perfection of sweetness and gentle- 
ness. The child's temper melted immediately, and he 
stood silent and abashed under the sense of his own 
um-easonableness. On the other hand, the reflection 
from onr own Combativeness is so instantaneons, that 
it is sometimes hard to say on which side the discipline 
is first and most needed. A motlier sees her child 
doing something wrong; in a sharp, angry tone she 
commands him to desist immediately. The child's dis- 
position to oppose is roused by the tone of the reproof, 
and he still persists ; upon which the mother repeats 
the command still more sharply — perhaps adding a 
threat by way of enforcing it. But this also is disre- 
garded, as is every succeeding attempt to procure 
obedience, because the child's Combativeness is sure to 
be excited in proportion to that of the mother. The 
warfare perhaps terminates by the mother giving way- 
first, while she satisfies her conscience by declaring that 
^' Papa shall know all about it when he comes home, 
and will be sure to punish you," thus showing very 
evidently her own incapacity, and making papa a bug- 
bear. If, as is often the case, the mother magnani- 
mously perseveres, enforces obedience, and punishes 
the resistance, almost equal mischief is done. While 
she is exulting within herself upon her proper display 
of authority, and boasting that she knows how to 
manage her children with firmness, she little thinks 
that by her own injudicious conduct she herself was 
the cause of disobedience in her child; and that 
instead of having gained, she has lost considerable 
authority by having lost much in the child's esteem and 
affection. He will do the same thing again when his 



Cornhativeness. 33 

mother is not present, because lie lias no motive but 
fear to deter him. 

A child never fails to perceive if the punishment be 
inflicted in a spirit of Combativeness or in sorrow and 
affection, and the remembrance of this, when calmness 
is restored, makes the whole difference as to whether 
the fruits of the lesson be good or evil. If, however, 
in the first instance, the mother had laid down her 
command in a perfectly kind, gentle, yet firm manner, 
the child must have been ill-trained beforehand if he 
did not obey immediately. Even without positive 
harshness, there is often an indescribable something in 
our manner or intonation which never fails to excite 
rebellion. Some teachers of good sense and quick 
sympathy have excellent tact in perceiving to a nicety 
the tone which will insure obedience ; to others this 
perception could never be conveyed, owing to certain 
deficiencies in their own organization, and these per- 
sons are often puzzled to account for their lack of 
power. We smile at the lamentable ignorance of cause 
and effect on the part of the poor uncultivated mother 
who has no remedy for the rebelliousness of her young 
urchins but a box on the ear ; but the utter want of 
tact and common sense is often as obvious in many a 
polished lady, who attempts to correct her child in most 
elegant language, but with a manner and emphasis 
irritating to the last degree. It is to be feared that the 
Golden Rule is not much heeded in the management 
of our children, as there is mostly a lurking persuasion, 
when the two wills come into collision, that it is theirs 
to endure, and ours to inflict ; otherwise the precept, 
" Do as you would be done by,'^ would throw light on 



34 The Education of the Feelings. 

many a dilemma of this kind, and suggest the right 
conrse in multitudes of cases where no other general 
rule can be applied. Put yourself as much as possible 
in your child's place. Picture to yourself the kind of 
admonition that would have the most power over your 
own mind, the tone of voice and manner that would 
least excite passion and rouse opposition, and adopt 
that. Do not attempt to drive, but always to lead. 
When a child is interested in some object of his own, 
do not, by a sudden command, interfere with it, but 
rather allow him a few minutes' grace^ and gradually 
divert his attention from one thing to another. Do not 
unnecessarily thwart your children in their little ob- 
jects; for however insignificant they may appear to 
you, they are all-important to them, and pursued with 
proportionate eagerness. The temper of no child is 
proof 3 or ought to be proof, against the frequent, use- 
less intermeddling of some parents and nurses, by whom 
he is allowed to bring nothing to an end, and obliged 
to relinquish all his little projects uncompleted. The 
more a child possesses of the spirit of opposition, the 
more uniformly kind and considerate should its in- 
structors endeavor to be. 

When strong, and joined to great Self-esteem, this 
feeling becomes very difficult to manage either in our- 
selves or children. It then begets almost an uncon- 
scious habit of opposition to all that is either suggested 
or proposed by other people. Everything must origi- 
nate with self, or it is ignored and put down at once. 
It may be even so strong and unreasonable as to give 
the idea that the desirj to contend comes from other 
people and not from ourselves, as in the Scotsman, 



Covibativeness. 3 5 

who, upon a friend mildly suggesting that it was a fine 
day, immediately rejoined : ^^And wha said anything 
against the day, I'd like to know ; you'd quarrel with a 
stone wa'." I have seen a person with the feeling so 
strong as to induce him to put down a statement as un- 
true from another w^hich he himself had made only an 
hour before, but for the moment had forgotten that it 
had originally come from himself. The most impor- 
tant thing to be inculcated in the direction of this 
faculty is, that it should never be exercised but in con- 
nection with the sense of duty, and so indissoluble 
should be the association between them, that the dis- 
position to contend and dispute should never arise 
without the voice of conscience urging the question : 
" Is it consistent with the rights of others, with truth 
and justice, to contest this point ? "^ 

The minds of many persons are kept in a continual 
ferment by the predominance of this feeling, together 
with Self-esteem, which leads them even to resent as 
an offense on the part of others conduct in which not 
the shghtest oft'ense was intended. At a single word 



* A suggestion, with quarrelsome and obstinate persons, 
is better than a command. A gentle little girl will manage 
a big, rough brother, better than one can who is like him- 
self though he were twice as large. The liberty of choos- 
ing the good or the bad way of doing, throws the child 
upon his honor to do rightly, while a positive command or 
absolute interdiction may provoke him to do wrong on 
purpose, so as not to seem cowardly or submissive. A low, 
firm tone makes a gentle mother's word law to her fiery, 
grown-up son, when the angry, domineering threat of the 
father would be defied, though disobedience might result 
in a disinheriting quarrel. 



36 The Education of the Feelings. 

construed by them into an indignity, or into a disposi- 
tion to injure them, the feeling is in arms, all comfort 
and equanimity of temper is destroyed, and the un- 
happy individual suffers far more, mentally, than he 
could have done from the offense, had it been real in- 
stead of imaginary. 

But we must not only control and guide the feeling, 
but where it is deficient take means to stimulate and 
strengthen it, for it is almost impossible to attain emi- 
nence in any active direction in the world without it. 
Constantly encourage the child to meet and overcome 
obstacles without your aid, and never let him rest satis- 
fied to leave anything half -finished. Dangers and dif- 
ficulties must be daily created. Eiding, climbing, and 
for some children even shooting and hunting may be 
resorted to for this purpose. We must not hide 
danger, or ahvays guard children from it by our own 
power and experience, but teach them to meet it boldly. 
Let them know the consequences to be incurred, and the 
pain to be borne, and teach them to bear it. Courage 
consists in meeting danger, not in blindly overlooking 
it. The most mischievous results may often be wit- 
nessed from surrounding children — ^boys especially— 
from their earliest infancy, with those whose duty is 
made to consist in doing everything for them, in guard- 
ing them from every little danger and inconvenience, 
clearing every path from obstruction, and constantly 
coddling and waiting upon them, instead of teaching 
them to meet and overcome all their little difficulties 
themselves, and occasionally helping them to do so. 
Under such mistaken kindness, this faculty frequently 
becomes paralyzed ; and all is done that can be done to 



Destructiveness, 37 

make of a child a puny, puling, weak, effeminate 
character. 



DESTEUCTIYENESS. 



Nature bestows no qualities that are not intended 
to conduce to the good of the individual and to his 
fellow-beings. The endowment of Destructiveness, 
although most mischievous in its abuse, in its right ap- 
plication is highly necessary and useful. It is supposed 
to give the inclination to destroy ; in its abuse, it is the 
desire of inflicting pain for the sake of giving pain, 
that is, cruelty. 

The feeling in its proper state helps to produce en- 
ergy of character, indignation against wrong, and reso- 
lution to inflict necessa/ry pain ; but uncontrolled by 
the moral faculties, it becomes anger, passion, revenge, 
cruelty, the love of tormenting. 

These latter manifestations of Destructiveness often 
make their appearance very early. Some young chil- 
dren have a strange propensity to torture and kill flies 
and other little animals within their reach, which pro- 
pensity entirely disappears in after-life, when other 
feelings have combined to temper the pure destructive 
instinct. It is obviously expedient never to excite the 
faculty by allowing a child to witness any act of de- 
struction whatever ; as little as possible to make allusion 
to killing and cruelty of any kind ; and always to avoid 
associating the animal food eaten at table with the 
lambs, pigs, or poultry he meets with in his daily walks. 
If we must be devourers of our fellow-creatures, let us 



38 The Education of the Feelings. 

keep our cannibalism in the background as much as 
possible/ 

The charge of favorite animals will have the best 
tendency to counteract the propensity, by creating a 
habit of kindly feeling toward living creatures. If 
parents or teachers have unfortunately a constitutional 
repugnance toward some species of animals, they will 
do well to conceal it, and, like a lady of our acquaint- 
ance, allow their lap to be filled with black beetles 
rather than communicate a shudder of disgust; since 
the feelings of dislike and fear in young children are 
often accompanied by those of anger and cruelty, al- 
though they may not be in ourselves. 

The expression of this feeling in petty revenge is 
often foolishly encouraged by nurses, " Did the naughty 
stick fall down and hurt baby ? — heat naughty stick ! " 
and even if a brother or sister are the offenders, the 
same amiable spirit of retaliation is impressed. A lady 
once trod inadvertently on the toes of a little cherub- 
faced girl; she pursued her like a fury, and would not 
be appeased till she had stamped on her toes in return. 
The natural tendency of this feeling is an eye for an 
eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Parents themselves fre- 
quently punish their children on the same principle for 
an involuntary error, provided its consequences are vex- 
atious to themselves. The tone of correction in gen- 
eral partakes too much of passion and the spirit of 
revenge rather than of sorrov/ and of love. While this 
is the case, we can not expect children to learn to sub- 
due the irritation of temper they feel when anything 
displeases them, and the habit once formed of giving 
way to it will be most diflSicult of subjection in after- 




' t) 



GEN. ISRAEL PUTNAM. 
DESTRUCTIVENESS. 



PLATE IV, 



t)estructivenefiR. SO 

life. "When united with an excess of this feeling there 
is a considerable love of opposition in a child, the tem- 
per becomes extremely difl&cult to manage, and perhaps 
the only way to succeed is to avoid as much as possible 
all occasions of exciting it, so that the feeling may de- 
crease for want of exercise ; while at the same time we 
cultivate diligently the moral and reasoning powers to 
oppose it. Even in the cradle the discipline should be 
began ; everything that is liable to excite the temper, 
to rouse the irascible feelings, should as far as possible 
be avoided, and when once excited, instead of leaving 
the child to cry and wear its passion out, its attention 
should be diverted and its feelings changed. From 
want of proper caution in small instances like this, a 
child frequently commences life with a bias in the tem- 
per and disposition not easily to be remedied. 

Sometimes, when the outward burst of passion is 
conquered, the feeling which dictates it finds vent in 
spiteful actions or ill-natured words ; in more advanced 
life, in bitter sarcasm or cutting innuendoes. Let the 
young be taught, that the amount of pain which is given 
to others under the influence of such a feeling is the 
measure of the offense thus committed, wlxatever may 
be the tone or gesture that accompanies it. 

The love of mischief seems to arise partly from this 
propensity and partly from the want of proper occupa- 
tion for a restless, active spirit. Let children have a 
plenty of useful and innocent employment found for 
them, and they will not be so fond of exercising their 
faculties to the destruction of things around them. 

The feeling, like all others, is most readily caught 
from sympathy. An atmosphere of passion and de- 



40 The JEducation of the Feelings. 

structive feeling may be created, as we have seen ; and 
an ordinarily mild, kind, and polite people, breath- 
ing and stimulated by such an atmosphere, may 
become cruel and ferocious and live in a sea of blood. 
Benevolence, kindness, justice, best control this fac- 
ulty.* 

What is usually called Temper results from this feel- 
ing, and the way in which it arises or shows itself after- 
ward, depends upon the other feelings with which it 
may be combined, and which may predominate in the 
disposition. With some, anger is a sudden outburst 



* Too much dictation in respect to every little thing irri- 
tates the Destructiveness of a child and makes it abnormal 
in size and activity. We met a little girl not four years 
old with the organ enormously developed. Neither of the 
parents had it more than medium, and a younger sister 
had it but moderate, in size. On asking the history of the 
case, the mother in sorrow, said, she was herself to blame 
for the terrible temper of the child. She resolved, having 
seen much bad training in families, to train her child per- 
fectly and make it behave. Hence every infantile act, not 
in accordance with decorous propriety, was taken notice 
of. Things a babe might not touch were left in her way 
and her hands were whipped if she touched them, and in 
every possible way she was snubbed and her temper kept 
sour ; was called naughty, her faults repeated to friends 
and made the most of, so as to impress their enormity on 
her mind. Then she grew worse, until the mother said, 
" Talking and whipping do no good; she flies at me and her 
baby sister in a wild frenzy of passion and I fear she will 
yet commit murder. " The younger child had been treated 
differently, and its Destructiveness not excited, and the 
organ had remained in harmony and proper keeping with 
the other faculties. 



I)s8t/ructiveness. 41 

and soon over, and is quickly sncceeded by the wish to 
make amends for the pain it may have given, or the 
mischief it may have wrought in its raging. This is 
where respect and kindness, and, above all, Conscien- 
tiousness predominate in the character, and where there 
is an absence of Concent rati ven ess, Secretiveness, and 
Cautiousness. In others, anger burns internally, and is 
vindictive, sulky, and lasting ; in this case the latter 
feelings, together with pride, are in excess, and the 
former frequently deficient. But Conscientiousness is 
the great desideratum in every character, and tends 
above all to keep every other feeling in its proper place 
and bounds. It is this that — whether we are open or sul- 
len, forgiving or vindictive, whether our anger be tran- 
sient or lasting — always ultimately brings us back into 
the right path and desire " to do only as we would be 
done by : " and there are some people that we rather 
like than otherwise to see angry, because we know that 
when the fit is over, and their conscience begins to call 
them to task, they will be overflowing for some time to 
come in every good and kind and generous feeling. I 
have known some naughty boys take advantage of this 
reaction of feeling, and get a flogging on account, well 
knowing that they could get almost anything they 
chose to ask aftei'ward. Destructiveness without Be- 
nevolence leads to great sevei'ity. Old soldiers describe 
the furor that comes over them in battle — the mad- 
dened, blood-shot eye, the love of blood, and delight in 
killing for its own sake. But this delight in blood is 
an abuse, not the proper use, of an otherwise necessary 
feeling. 



42 The Education of the Feelings. 

SECRETIVENESS. 

The mind requires a covering as much as the body, 
and this faculty, properly exercised, furnishes the de- 
sire to conceal thoughts and feelings which are better 
not exposed. It is true " that the truth must not be 
told at all times/' that true wisdom and benevolence 
often forbid the utterance of the thought which is in 
our minds ; that it is better to suppress certain feelings 
or ideas than by publishing them to give useless pain 
to others ; but, however valuable Secretiveness, or the 
tendency to conceal, may be in matured life, as assist- 
ing in the formation of proper reserve, prudence, and 
that " better part of valor — discretion ; " the instinct re- 
quires less notice in early childhood with respect to its 
use than its abuse. 

It is necessary clearly to comprehend the young 
mind* in all its inmost workings as well as outward 
manifestations, in order to direct it aright, A child 
should, therefore, repose unlimited confidence in one or 
both of his parents ; and that he may be encouraged to 
this, fear should be banished from the intercourse ; the 
child should learn to look upon them as sympathizing 
friends who will enter into all his feelings and enjoy- 
ments, and to whom he may freely communicate his 
thoughts upon all occasions. They will thus be able to 
give the right direction to the feelings and propensities, 
and uproot error before its gTowth shall have injured, 
as all error must do, the truths already planted. It is 
scarcely credible to those who have not minutely ob- 
served it, to what a train of errors one false perception 
will give rise in the mind of a child. A French author 
justly observes on this subject, "Error, dangerous in 




M. SOMNEILLER. 
SECRETIVENESS. 



PLATE V. 



Secretiveness. 43 

itself, is still more so by propagation : one produces 
many. Every man compares more or less bis ideas to- 
getber. If be adopt a false idea, tbat united witb 
otbers produces sucb as are necessarily false, wbicb 
combining again witb all tbose wbicb bis memory con- 
tains, gives to all of tbem a greater or less tinge of 
falsebood." Again be says, " A single error is suflB- 
cient to degrade a people, to obscure tbe wbole borizon 
of tbeir ideas." Tbese errors can only be properly re- 
moved at tbeir source, wbicb is not easily discovered 
unless cbildren are in tbe babit of confiding closely in 
tbeir instructor ; if be be a judicious one be will not 
despise tbeir little ideas, nor ridicule tbeir mistakes or 
simple misapprebensions. 

A cbild wbo was very literal in bis ideas, had often 
heard tbe passage of Scripture read, ^^Even tbe very 
hairs of your bead are all numbered," and received 
from it tbe idea, tbat a figure denoting its particular 
number was inscribed on each hair. One day bis 
brothers and sisters were amusing themselves witb a 
microscope, and called him eagerly to look through it 
at a few hairs placed underneath. He looked at it ear- 
nestly for some time, and then muttered, " I don't see 
the number ! " His companions laughed at the ab- 
surdity of bis exclamation. He was abashed at their 
laughter and did not explain, but the idea remained in 
his mind that the Bible had said something that was 
not true. 

It is the mistaken idea of some parents tbat in order 
to secure tbe confidence of their cbildren, they must 
assume a sort of infallibility, and must never let it be 
found out tbat their own knowledge is at fault. When, 



4:4: The Education of the Feelings. 

therefore, they are taxed with questions that they can 
not answer, they evade them by such prevarications as 
"Want of time just tlien to attend to them,'' — ''Not 
a proper question to be asked," — " Beyond a child's 
capacity to understand," — and so on. Such parents 
little think how much they undermine confidence by 
this and every species of shuffling, which children are 
sure to detect and almost as sure to imitate. It is their 
duty to qualify themselves in every possible way for 
satisfying the desire for knowledge in their children ; 
but if they can not, let them simply and honestly con- 
fess their ignorance, and become fellow-learners with 
their children to find an answer, if- the question is 
worth answering. A half-educated mother, who does 
not pretend to more knowledge than she really has, 
but who has the wish for more, commands much more 
the respect and confidence of her children than if her 
learning and acquirements were the fullest possible, be- 
cause they know v/hat she professes to know, she really 
does know, and because it is the instinct of humanity 
from childhood upw^ard to respect and confide in truth 
and honesty far more than in extent of knowledge. It 
is the same with moral deficiencies. Parents laiow 
that they ought to be models for their offspring, and 
sometimes, therefore, wish it to be assumed that they 
are so, and tacitly forbid their own weaknesses being 
made subject of comment before the children. The 
little creatures, however, make comments enough about 
them among themselves, and, perhaps, learn that hypoc- 
risy is a grace for the drawing-room, and truth a 
luxury for the nursery. Perfect candor toward our 
children with respect to our own failings — showing 



SecrefAveness. 45 

that we earnestly desire to correct them if we can, and 
if we cannot, using them as a warning for their benefit 
— ^is the best possible way of making them candid and 
above disguise in return. If we really seek the good 
of our children and not onr glorification, in many cases 
the precept, " Confess your faults one to another," may 
be acted upon even between parents and children in 
preference to the adoption of any one-sided confessional. 

Where real confidence exists between parents and 
their child, there is little danger to be apprehended 
even from a naturally secretive disposition, because the 
parents will be able to see its workings, and counteract 
them where they are tending to evil. They will en- 
courage, by leniency, the confession of faults, and 
prove to the offender that openness is more advan- 
tageous than concealment. When a child with such 
a disposition is treated with severity or indifference, 
when his thoughts and feelings, if he does utter them, 
are disregarded, when the avowal of a fault draws 
down the chastisement instead of averting it, what can 
we expect but that he should use cunning to attain his 
wishes, and falsehood to evade punishment ? If deceit 
and lying be made his interest, he will practice them. 

The summary modes of punishment still in frequent 
use, such as corporal punishment, solitary confinement, 
or tasks for all species of misconduct, have a strong 
tendency to call the propensity we are speaking of into 
exercise. Children, not seeing the connection between 
the penalty and the offense, naturally enough conclude, 
that to avoid the penalty they have only to conceal the 
offense. The proper punishment for a fault, which 
Grod hinaself has appointed for us^ is the natural conse- 



46 The Education of the Feelings. 

quenees of the error. We should, therefore, in order 
to correct a fault, allow these natural consequences to 
fall upon the child, who will thus generally see the con- 
nection between them, and abstain from its commission 
in future ; but when these consequences are not plainly 
discernible, or are too remote to operate sufficiently, 
the punishment should have reference to the offense. 
For example, he is permitted to play in a garden upon 
condition that he willfully damages nothing ; he tramples 
down the young and tender plants to reach the unripe 
fruit, which he plucks — the natural consequence is the 
loss of the flowers and fruit in their season. But he 
has also broken the conditions on which he was ad- 
mitted — the punishment for this is exclusion from the 
privilege, until a sincere conviction of his error vouches 
for his better fulfillment of the condition. Or, in a fit 
of passion, he may have hurt or injured his companions 
— the natural punishment is the being left by them 
until the state of mind which induced the commission 
of the fault is changed, and he seeks their society and 
forgiveness sensible of his own error in alienating those 
whose companionship is necessary to his happiness. 
The only proper and effectual remedy for error is to 
show why it is error, and to excite the desire to correct 
it; merely to forbid it under certain penalties, without 
this conviction of the understanding, rather induces the 
child to commit it, when he can do so with impunity. 

As motives to ol)edience, the selfish feelings should 
be appealed to as little as possible, even in early child- 
hood ; and when the moral feelings have been culti- 
vated and strengthened, not in any case. Thus we 
should not appeal to a child's appetite, or his fear^ to 



Secretweness. 4H 

his desire of applause, or pride ; but to his sense of 
right, his desire to make us happy, his love and venera- 
tion for God, from whom, as he may soon be taught to 
perceive^ all his enjoyments proceed. 

While we deprecate most earnestly the abuse of the 
faculty under notice, we must not forget entirely its 
use, even in childhood. Under the guidance of the 
moral powers, it gives rise to some valuable qualities of 
mind ; to a prudent reserve, and, in after-life, to a ju- 
dicious tact and management, to a proper regard for 
time, place, and circumstance. It will put a bridle on 
the tongue, and enable us to conceal those feelings 
which the deceit or selfishness of others would take ad- 
vantage of — for we must not "wear our heart upon 
our sleeves, for daws to peck at." Children under this 
influence will suppress the outward indication of the 
selfish feelings, that they may not interfere with the 
enjoyment of others. They will bear pain without 
complaining, that they may not give pain to those 
around them ; they will prefer to keep their uneasy 
sensations to themselves, rather than oblige everybody 
near to participate in them. They will be modest and 
unobtrusive, not demanding for their ideas, their con- 
cerns, first attention, but repressing their impatience 
until their turn for notice arrives. 

An open, frank, ingenuous disposition is the most 
lovely of all, and that to which we can the soonest 
attach ourselves ; but it does not always follow that a 
child of reserved temper is disingenuous ; love of truth, 
candor of spirit, and a warm, affectionate disposition 
may dwell under the natural reserve. Kindness and 
trust will cherish and draw forth the best feelings of 



48 The Education of the Feelings. 

sucli a nature, while severity and suspicion will act 
upon it with most baneful influence. 

We should always avoid all double dealing, or even 
double meaning. Let us never make any profession 
before children which we do not mean — profess, for 
instance, to be glad to see people whom we are not glad 
to see, and whom immediately before we were speaking 
against. If we ever wear two faces, children will soon 
learn to imitate us. 

The love of truth and candor can never be cultivated 
with success while children see a disregard of it in 
others. If it were universal, if the light of truth were 
permitted to shine upon our characters and conduct, 
how much better should we feel ourselves obliged to 
be, what a different race should we become ! Thou- 
sands of actions which are now performed because we 
think no one sees them or will find out the motives that 
induced them, would be replaced by such as would bear 
the daylight. A sound writer observes : " There is 
nothing that we ought to reject with more unalterable 
firmness than an action that, by its consequences, re- 
duces us to the necessity of duplicity and concealment. 
No man can be eminently respectable, or amiable, or 
useful, who is not distinguished for the frankness and 
candor of his manners. This is the grand fascination 
by which we lay hold of the hearts of our neighbors, 
conciliate their attention, and render virtue an irresist- 
ible object of imitation.'^ 

There are two classes of character with which we are 
all familiar — those whose feelings and emotions may all 
be said to go on outside of them, and those who keep 
all their thoughts and feelings to themselves. This 



Secretiveness. 49 

openness or reserve depends very much upon the 
strength of this faculty and its combination with 
Cautiousness and Approbativeness ; and the whole 
character, and particularly the way in which it affects 
others, very much turns upon the proportion of Secret- 
iveness in it. Under the influence of this combination, 
every other feeling expresses itself with a distinctive 
difference ; and however alike in opinion and principle 
persons may be in whom this difference exists, this 
similarity is little apparent. We are drawn at once to 
the frank, candid, open-hearted person, but our love is 
more lasting for the pradently reserved. We dislike 
loud expression even where the virtues are alone con- 
cerned, and the reserved person is much less likely to 
offend in all other respects than the open one. We 
place the clear light of truth to be desired above every- 
thing, but the close person will frequently find his ac- 
count in his reserve, as the world often gives credit for 
sense where there is only silence, and believes a well to 
be deep when it is only dark. Strong Hope with this 
feeling weak, leads to great loquacity, and often betrays 
shortcomings against which there would be no other 
than this self-witness."^ 



*A proper endowment of Secretiveness, with justice 
and good sense, leads a person not to repeat what others, 
may say, if the effect of its circulation would harm any 
person in mind, body, character, standing, or estate. The 
gossiper is not necessarily a bad meaning person, though his 
tongue is like a torch setting society on fire and plucking 
down a hornet's nest about his own ears, and that of all of 
whom he speaks. People are not perfect — especially other 
people— and no one is free from ways, words, surroundings, 
or characteristics which may not be criticised, found fault 
3 



60 Tlie Education of the Feelings. 

ACQUISITIYENESS. 

Tlie love of acquisition is so widely spread in the 
world, that, as in the ease of the last-mentioned faculty, 
there is far less occasion to advert to its use, than to its 
abuse. We must accumulate to provide against want, 
both for our own sakes and for that of our oflfspring, 
who for years are unable to provide for themselves— 
and this is its use ; but to its almost universal abuse, 
and to the want, in general, of clear ideas as to the 
nature of real happiness, as a result of the misuse of 
property when acquired, are owing many of the preva- 
lent evils of society at the present day. 



with, or ridiculed. And what is the good of it ? Do we do 
it to show our wisdom, culture, or fortunate condition, in 
contrast with theirs ? If so, it is mean and egotistical. If 
to depress and scourge others for what in part they may 
not be to blame, it is detestable. Many seem to have a 
** mouth like an open sepulchre " full of the bones of slaugh- 
tered victims. Their tongue is not only fiery and bitter, 
but it is too noisy, always carelessly, if not malignly, busy. 
Such persons soon become feared and avoided. What 
they say to be sociable and friendly, and place them- 
selves high by flattering the present and scoring the ab- 
sent, defeats its object, by making every listener afraid to 
say a word which means anything, or to be friendly or 
even pleasant and sociable. Speak evil of none carelessly. 
The Quaker lady was right in her way. Her daughter told 
a friend who was visiting her that her mother, she believed, 
would speak well even of the devil, if he were slandered in 
her presence. When she re-entered the room, the visitor 
said, ''Thy daughter says she thinks thee would take the 
devil's part if he were slandered in thy presence." She 
instantly replied with a smile, **We might all profitably 
imitate his industry and perseverance." 




B. H. BRISTOW. 
ACQUISITIVENESS. 



PLATE VI. 



Acquisitiveness. 51 

- We have passed from a military to a commercial age, 
and the aims of the one are pursued in almost the same 
unreasoning spirit as those of the other. The general 
crusade in pursuit of wealth is almost as mad as was . 
that for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. The 
spirit of gain has seized the whole population; and ac 
cumulation for its own sake, or for the sake of mere 
animal indulgence and of the most absurd, paltry, and 
vain distinctions, is widely prevalent. 

Boys are too frequently brought up to consider the 
acquirement of property as almost the chief end and 
aim of their existence ; and if not the letter, this is at 
least the spirit of the instructions they receive : busi- 
ness must be attended to before everything else, and all 
other duties are to give place to it. In this faculty we 
have an illustration of what may be done in the culti- 
vation and strengthening of the feelings, for we con- 
tinually meet with instances in which it has become so 
strong by constant action that the whole life is spent in 
its exercise, from the mere love of acquiring, without 
reference to the end for which acquisition is made. 
More frequently, however, persons amass all they can 
with the object of purchasing with it, not rational en- 
joyment, but what they conceive to be a higher place 
in the scale of society, by means of a larger establish- 
ment, horses, carriages, a luxurious table, and a magnif- 
icent appropriation of every animal gratification ; and 
in the midst of the most lavish expenditure. Acquisi- 
tiveness is in fuU activity, heaping up luxuries round 
about the center, self. 

People live to get rich, instead of getting rich to 
live, in the higher acceptation of that term. Love, 



52 The Education of the Feelings. 

truth, and beauty, music and poetry, nature and art, 
these are the true objects of existen.ce ; but these are 
sacrificed, and the greater part of life spent in acquir- 
ing riches, merely that we may eat, drink, sleep, clothe, 
and ride luxuriously, and otherwise lead the life of a 
mere animal. To be a man in all that distinguishes 
man from the brute, is not the object, but to get rich ; 
for in the present state of society a man is not measured 
by his manhood, but by his money. Money secures 
for us the necessaries of life, leisure, and opportunity 
for the pursuit of truth and knowledge, the enjoyment 
and cultivation of the beautiful in nature, art, and 
above all, it adds to our power of helping others, and 
makes social intercourse easy and agreeable. For all 
these purposes money is really power, and its acquisi- 
tion a legitimate object of pursuit ; but when we give 
the best years of our life to its attainment, after these 
wants have been reasonably provided for, even worldly 
aggrandizement is but a poor exchange for our souls. 
This is the true worship of the devil Mammon, in op- 
position to the worship of God. AVe live in this con- 
taminated moral atmosphere, and it is difficult to pre- 
vent young people from catching the contagion ; but 
they should be early taught the real objects of life, that 
they may not lose its end in acquiring the means ; that 
it is within ourselves that the springs of happiness must 
arise, and not in any external advantages ; and that all 
the highest requirements of our nature God has made 
as plentiful as pure air and water ; and that the power 
to take in the " landscape " is better even than the pos- 
session of the " land " itself. Teach them first " to 
seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness," 



Acquisitiveness, 53 

with the perfect certainty that all these things " shall 
be added unto them ; " — that riches, whether acquired 
by themselves or others, are a charge and responsibility, 
to be spent in farthering the development of mind, and 
the spirit of love in man, and in promoting the happi- 
ness of the whole sensitive creation. 

In early life the feeling is disposed, particularly when 
fully developed, to act separately, and a child should 
be taught to set no value upon anything except in 
proportion to its utility. The two ideas — the thing, 
and its use, should never be disjoined. The disposition 
to hoard, to collect a number of things together for the 
mere sake of being possessed of them, of callimg them 
" mine," as much as possible should in every instance 
be repressed, and they should be valued as the means 
of giving pleasure to others. What more common 
ground of nursery strife than the love of possession ? 
The child tired of its plaything, throws it carelessly 
aside, until his little brother takes it up ; the feeling of 
property rises — he instantly snatches at it, and cries, 
" Johnnie sha'n't have it ! It is mine ! Papa gave it 
to me ! " Johnnie thinks present possession a good 
title, and holds it fast. A struggle, and perhaps a fight 
ensues, until nurse settles the question between justice 
and benevolence as she best can, with very confused 
notions on the subject — most likely by an angry shake, 
or box on the ear, of the elder combatant. 

It is not intended that children should not be taught 
to respect others' rights, but merely that they should 
learn gracefully to yield their own on fitting occasions, 
when the greater pleasure of others can be gained by it. 

Many well-iutentioned persons in whom the pro- 



54 The Editcafion of the Feelings, 

peiisity to acquire is strong, from its having been in 
constant exercise all their lives, foster selfishness and 
avarice in their children, while they think only that 
they are engendering a proper spirit of economy. 
Many wise saws are employed for this purpose, snch 
as, " a penny saved is a penny gained," etc. There 
was one mother who told her children always to keep 
their eyes on the ground when they took a walk, be- 
cause they possibly might find something that other 
people had dropped."^ 

*The morbid love of gain is induced by training, and 
by the prevalent spirit of the household. It is also in- 
herited by the children of parents who crave wealth and 
make it the prominent thought of daily life. We could fill 
hundreds of pages with cases illustrating this unnatural 
development. We give one. A wealthy and thriving 
merchant has an only son aged twelve years, whose mother 
recently brought him for a phrenological examination. 
We found him a bright, intellectual boy, with good moral 
and social qualities, but he had enormous Acquisitiveness 
and Secretiveness ; and after calling the mother's atten- 
tion to the abnormal tendency to acquire, and lay up any- 
thing and everything, even articles of only imaginary 
value, she said he already had a bureau full of strings, 
empty spools, bits of glass, corks, bottles, broken dishes, 
anything; he also had a box in the wood-house, which would 
hold a bushel, filled with bits of iron, old broken stove 
covers, rusty hoops, scrap iron of any sort which he had 
collected, bit by bit, from the streets, gutters, or vacant 
lots, all of which he husbanded with a miser's care. To 
make the matter intense, the boy then took up the story 
and said, lifting up his coat behind, " You see, sir, this big 
iron spike which I picked up on the railroad in the coun- 
try recently, a,nd mamma won't let me carry it in my 
pocket, so I suspend it by a string around my neck and 



Const/ructiveness. 55 

If we blame the selfish hoarding of that which might 
be made most beneficial to others, the waste of it is still 
more reprehensible ; the needless waste of one particle 
that would be serviceable to others, is wrong. The 
frugality which avoids this is so distinct in its nature 
from meanness or stinginess, that it may safely be in- 
sisted on with children without fear of making them 
miserly. 

As the abuse of Secretiveness leads to lying, so the 
abuse of this faculty leads to theft ; but both feelings 
must be badly trained indeed ever to lead to these low 
and disreputable vices, except in the very necessitous 
classes. Avarice and covetousness also arise from the 
undue activity of Acquisitiveness. But we suspect 
that other abuses of this feeling will be found besides 
these which lie so evidently upon the surface. If a 
man consumes more than he produces, it certainly must 
be at some other's expense ; and it is time we began to 
inquire seriously at whose expense it is. 



CONSTRUCTIYENESS. 

As the last faculty described gives the desire to ac- 
quire and accumulate, so this gives the desire to con- 
let it hang down my back under my coat." And sure 
enough, there it hung, rough and rusty, between his 
shoulder-blades. When asked if it was not a nuisance, 
especially when he leaned back in his chair, he replied, 
*^ Oh, yes, it is something of a bother, but the pleasure I feel 
in knowing that I have it, more than makes up for all the 
annoyance. " 

The boy had large Benevolence and was very Uberal 
where generous service and not money was called for. 



66 The Education of the Feelings. 

struct, to make macliines, and to use tools to enable us 
to do so. At first sight it may seem to have little to 
do with moral education, but if employment be neces- 
sary to the health of both body and mind, it is very 
desirable to cultivate that power which disposes us to 
seek it. 

In some children its development is s^ remarkable 
that it can not remain unnoticed. Their little fingers 
are always trying to execute the designs shadowed 
forth in their imaginations, and though the fair image 
is apt to look very clumsy and ill-proportioned when it 
is embodied, the young operatives acquire manual dex- 
terity in their repeated attempts to accomplish their 
ideas, until the well-rigged boat, the freely-working 
steam-engine, stand forth in miniature perfection to 
reward their perseverance. In such cases the faculty 
wiU, unless checked by peculiar obstacles, or intellectual 
deficiencies, go on developing itself until it leads to 
success in some branch of science or the arts which re- 
quires mechanical skill. It might seem necessary to 
point out the absurdity of compelling such children to 
enter into a line of profession quite at variance with 
this natural taste, if we did not so often see it com- 
mitted. In few children is the faculty so deficient that 
they might not always employ themselves profitably in 
its cultivation if materials were afforded them, and if 
the usual prohibition were not laid upon '^ making a 
litter." 

Persons who teach music, the piano for instance, 
know how desirable it is that their pupils should begin 
early to use the keys, as their fingers then acquire a 
facility which can iiot be attained in after-life ; in the 




THOMAS A. EDISON. 
CONSTRUCTIVENESS. 



PLATE VII. 



Constructiveness, S? 

same manner children, under the instinctive impulses 
of this faculty, if properly assisted and instructed, gain 
a mechanical dexterity of infinite service to them in 
almost all the pursuits of life, and which might very 
much lessen the necessary term of apprenticeship to 
any manual employment. Wlien this facility in the 
use of the fingers is not acquired early, and when the 
natural disposition to it is deficient, it can. seldom be 
afterward attained, and an inaptitude for all manual 
operations will be conspicuous through life. Building 
houses, bridges, etc., with wooden bricks, or with cards, 
joining dissected maps, cutting figures on paper, draw- 
ing, are all exercises of this faculty, and therefore use- 
ful indoor amusements ; but it should be borne in 
mind that children ai^e always happier when a pleasant 
employment to themselves is also of use to their elders, 
and they will work with great alacrity at it if their at 
tention be not confined too long. As boys grow older, 
the juvenile v/orkshop will become an excellent school 
for the faculty. 

In all ranks, power and skill in the use of the hands 
are most desirable. Yacant minutes and hours may 
then be filled up with useful and agreeable occupation 
which would otherwise be devoted to listlessness and 
ennui, and the mind is refreshed for renewed exertion. 
When the mind has been over-excited or disturbed, 
manual occupation tranquillizes it, and restores its equi- 
librium, when study would only increase the evil. In 
the tedium of sickness its assistance is invaluable, by 
gently drawing off the attention from the languid and 
uneasy bodily feelings which accompany the lighter de- 
grees of suffering. 
3* 



5S The Education of the Feelings. 

The needle and its kindred labors are tlie never- 
failing resource of one sex ; and where the faculty of 
Constructiveness has been properly educated, the pen- 
cil, the tool-box, the chemical apparatus, and many other 
implements of art or science, will furnish the other sex 
with useful and interesting employment in the intervals 
of more important avocations, or of mental labors. 

When the organ of this faculty is largely developed, 
it generally leads to great facility in using the lingers 
for all mechanical pui'poses ; but it is a feeling or senti- 
ment, not an intellectual faculty. It requires to be 
joined to large Form, Size, Weight, and Imitation, to 
make a good workman.^ 



* When we consider how many of the comforts of daily life 
come to us through the use of this faculty, which, joined in 
action with Causality, constitute the power of invention, 
we recognize its great, its indispensable necessity to civiliza- 
tion. If the faculty could be blotted out it would remand 
the human race to a condition of shelterless wandering, 
thereby making man worse off, in fact, than most of the 
animal tribes, who are by nature clad in feathers or fur. 
We have heard respectable people, who are sensible and 
considerate in most matters, speak contemptuously of 
mechanism and mechanics, and we have been wicked 
enough to wish they could be compelled to try life for a 
while with no aid from the head and hand of the skilled 
mechanic. If they were brought to the necessity of con- 
structing tools to work with in manufacturing clothing, 
and shelter, and also implements for tilHng the soil and 
procuring food, they would soon be ashamed of their 
derision of mechanism and mechanics. Indeed the farmer 
who raises food, and raw material for ten thousand other 
articles of comfort and elegance, must use Constructive- 
ness in no small degree. One does not need to build an 



Cautiousness. 59 

CAUTIOUSNESS. 

Combativeness gives the desire to meet and to repel 
danger — Cautiousness, on the contrary, to avoid it. 
Here is one of Nature's frequent paradoxes ; but the 
result of the two feelings, equally strong, would be judi- 
cious courage, prudent energy, and calm circumspection. 

A disposition in which this quality is superabundant, 
will present some of the same difficulties in its manage- 
ment as those proceeding from ^ secretive temper. A 
dread of the consequences of speaking the truth may 
have the same effects as a disposition to hide it. When 
these original tendencies are found united, it will re- 
quire a strong exercise of the superior powers of the 
mind for the maintenance of truth and sincerity on all 
occasions. Without, however, any disposition to deceit, 
we sometimes see children of a naturally timid spirit 
guilty of falsehood under the strong dominion of fear. 
It does not follow necessarily that the character will 
prove false ; for with the cultivation of the moral pow- 
ers, moral courage will grow, until falsehood will be 
feared more than truth, though coupled with any conse- 
quences. 

The constant and earnest effort of the instructor 
must be to inspire the moral courage which shall dare 
to act uprightly, whatever may be the immediate con- 
engine, a loom, a piano, or a cathedral, to be mechanical. 
There is scarcely a profession or other pursuit, in which 
mechanical skill, in some degree, does not become a con- 
venient, if not necessary, factor. All should know how to 
use tools in some useful work and become theoretically 
cultured in this faculty as a means of judging of the prod- 
ucts we have occasion to deal in or use. 



60 The Education of the Feelings. 

sequences ; and also to put tlie prudence and circum- 
spection which result from a cautious disposition under 
the guidance of Benevolence, so that they may lead to 
watchful care and consideration for the interests and 
well-being of others, rather than to an over-anxiety for 
those of self. 

If the natural development of Cautiousness be too 
small, children must be taught early to calculate the 
consequences of actions, and be led to discern the mis- 
chiefs which may arise from hasty, ill-advised conduct, 
in order to guard against rashness and precipitation. 
How much pain and trouble often originate in one in- 
considerate step, a few incautious words ! 

Cautiousness must be also considered in the relation 
it bears to physical as well as to moral excitements. 

Before children understand the nature of the objects 
around them they have reason to be cautious, and 
therefore in them the feeling usually predominates. 
Education must step in to prevent Caution from de- 
generating into timidity, and its deficiency from giving 
rise to heedlessness. If a child be heedless, the most 
effectual method of cure, when it can be adopted with- 
out serious mischief ensuing, is to let him feel fully the 
consequences of his rashness. If he will put his hand 
too near the fire, let him be burned ; if he will over- 
balance himself, let him fall; if he will tease the cat, 
let her scratch him ; and these self-taught lessons will 
make a more lasting impression than many a prudent 
warning or angry admonition. On the other hand, 
children who are naturally timid are frequently made 
cowards by the injudicious care and attention of those 
around. For example, the child, in attempting to run 




D. H. PINGREY. 
CAUTIOUSNESS. 



PLATE VIII. 



I 



Cautiousness, 61 

alone, tumbles and falls; the whole family start np 
alarmed ; anxious inquiries and ejaculations are poured 
into the child's ears, until he begins to find out, what 
he would scarcely have known otherwise, that he has 
been hurt. Then begins a roar, and then are redoubled 
the expressions of commiseration, and meanwhile the 
child thinks to himself, " What a perilous adventure ! 
What a little hero I was to tumble down ! " A thou- 
sand unheeded bruises would do him less harm than 
the ill-timed sympathy. From having every trifling 
mishap made a matter of such prodigious impor- 
tance, he will soon learn to consider paiu a mighty 
evil, and his own pain especially to be dreaded and 
guarded against, and will perhaps grow up one of those 
selfish, calculating persons, who never can persuade 
themselves to do a good action, without being 'first 
morally certain that not the slightest inconvenience 
will be thereby entailed upon themselves. We do not 
mean to say that children are to be treated with un- 
kindness and neglect ; but it is truer kindness to try to 
render the mind superior to pains and trials, than to let 
such pains and trials get the mastery."^ 

We may hope that the time is almost gone by when 

* Petting and pitying children when anything of minor 
consequence occurs to them is very bad policy, for both 
parent and child. A neighbor of ours had a little girl two 
or three years old. Whenever she fell while walking she 
would lie and cry until one of the family ran and picked 
her up and niade an ado over the mishap. Their usage 
had trained her to expect this. One day she was visiting 
with our children, and, in running, fell. She started, as 
usual, to cry, but looking around, remembered that her 
mother and sister were not there to pity and commiser- 



62 The Education of the Feelings, 

the fears of children are purposely excited by imaginary 
objects of terror, when superstition is engendered for 
life in order to enforce temporary obedience ; the folly, 
the cruelty, the wickedness of this practice has become 
sufficiently obvious to the intelligent, and even nurse- 
maids have begun to catch the enlightenment of the 
day in this respect ; but there is still another fear which 
is sometimes too much impressed upon the minds of 
children, and this is — the fear of death. The represen- 
ations of death itseK in pictures, and in pictures, too, 
that are given to children for their amusement, are of a 
hideous and revolting kind. The accompanying cir- 
cumstances of death, churchyards, sepulchres, and cof- 
fins, are associated in their minds with dreariness, 
gloom, and superstitious horrors. " A child came run- 
ning into its mother's room one day, sobbing violently, 
' Mamma, mamma, I don't like to die ; all the dirt will get 
into my eyes ! ' and thus it is we spoil the wise arrange- 
ments of Providence ! introducing them to the childish 
mind before it can take any but the most partial possi- 
ble view of them. The child will probably never lose 
the impression which he that day received from his 
maid ; perhaps will never feel the charm which there is 
in the thought of that gentle sleep which dissolves our 
mortal body, and perhaps reposes the spirit, intervening 
between its earthly and heavenly career." ^ 

There is more to be feared from excessive timidity 



ate, and she stopped crying, got up and went on with the 
play, and thus the whole afternoon, she fell a dozen times, 
but picked herself up and did not cry at all. 

* Monthly Repository. 



Cautiousness. 63 

than from too great rashness ; we should, therefore, be 
careful to give this faculty as little stimnlation, as little 
exercise as possible— for every faculty is strengthened 
by exercise, and weakened by inactivity. Children can 
no more help feeling afraid than they can help feeling 
the toothache. It is absurd, therefore, and very inju- 
dicious to laugh at their fears, unless a cheerful laugh 
will help to dispel them and restore confidence. We 
ought to protect children as much as possible from im- 
aginary fears until they are of an age to see their 
groundlessness and until other feelings have acquired 
sufficient strength to supply moral courage. Feelings 
are aroused more by sympathy with others than by pre- 
cept and lectures ; particularly is fear caught from what 
is seen of the feeling manifested by those about us. 
Richter says, " One scream of fear from a mother may 
resound through the whole life of her daughter ; for no 
rational discourse can extinguish the mother's scream." "^ 
Early fears have nothing to do with reason, and are to 
be treated as we would treat a bodily ailment. How- 
ever unreasonable their fears, do not force children to 
bear them ; show their groundlessness, if possible, and 
accustom them to objects of terror by degrees. Never 
let us judge of their state of mind by our own. We 
say this equally with reference to all the feelings, for 
in no case are the feelings of a child and of a grown-up 
person alike. This too common mistake of judging 
children by ourselves is productive of infinite error and 
wrong. Timidity, over-caution, indecision, arise from 
the excess of Cautiousness, and such weaknesses are 



* Levana, or The Doctrine of Education. 



6-1 The Education of the Feelings. 

inconipatible with greatness, or even with success in 
any high object/^ 

Lai'ge Caiitionsness and small Combativeness lead to 
excessive timidity ; that is, to natural cowardice. 

Very large Cautiousness and small Hope produce 
great depression and despondency, and a gloomy view 
of all things, frequently leading to suicide. 

Combativeness, Destructiveness, and Cautiousness in 
excess, make an irritable, peevish temper. 



LOYE OF LIFE. 



This faculty produces an instinctive wish to preserve 
life for its own sake, independently of the pleasure or 
pain with which it may be accompanied. It induces 
men to cling to life in circumstances in which other- 



* Natural timidity, through excessive Cautiousness, may 
co-exist in a child with large Combativeness, which, when 
aroused, produces force and courage; and in character 
they act alternately, or in harmony, according to the nature 
and influence of circumstances. The little boy who was 
afraid to go to bed in an adjoining room, on account of 
the darkness, and because he sometimes heard rats run- 
ning in the walls and ceiling, was cured by having a long 
stick placed in his hands by his father, with directions to 
whip on the wall when he heard the rats running. He 
waited to hear their noise, and when it was begun, he 
whipped on the wall and silenced them. He had won a 
victory. The exercise of Combativeness gave him pleasure ; 
his Cautiousness was silenced; and every night he was in 
a hurry to have darkness and bedtime come so that he 
might watch for the rats, stick in hand. 




JACOB M. HOWARD. 
VITATIVENESS — LOVE OF LIFE. 



PLATE IX. 



Love of Life. 65 

wise existence might not be thought desii^able. This 
instinctive feeling it is which, perhaps, more than 
reason or principle, prevents men escaping from tem- 
porary suffering by suicide. It is this feeling, assisted 
by Hope and Wonder (Spirituality), which has, in all 
countries, unaided' by a supernatural revelation, origi- 
nated the idea of a future state. Little can be said here 
with reference to the education of the feeling, although 
much mischief results from the too common mode of 
treating the subject of death. The consequence of the 
injudicious representations so frequently made is the 
great dread of death that sometimes embitters the 
whole of life ; the only antidote to which feeling is the 
faith which enables us to place our ultimate fate, with 
unbounded confidence, in the hands of our Father who 
is in Heaven."^ 



* While making phrenological examinations at an Asylum 
for the Insane, a party of ladies was collected for the pur- 
pose. I supposed the persons to be attendants or nurses. 
Of the third subject I remarked, ''You have an excellent 
constitution, and ought, with proper care, to live until you 
are ninety. Besides, you have such excessive Love of 
Life that you will hold on until the last drop of vitality 
shall be exhausted ; " and turning to the matron, remarked, 
*'If this woman ever becomes insane it will be through 
fear of death, arising from the morbid activity of that 
faculty." The matron replied, "She is a patient, and 
that is her point of difficulty. She gets an idea that she is 
going to die and thinks no man can prevent her death but 
the Medical Superintendent of the Institution." 

The patient thus learned, intellectually, what the trouble 
was, and resolved to rise above it. Her husband visited her 
the next day, and she told him she was organized to live 
to be ninety, that her expectation and fear of death was 



66 The Education of the Feelings. 

THE SELF-EEGAKDING FEELINGS. 

SELF-ESTEEM. 

Self-esteem must not be confounded with selfishness^ 
which belongs to all the lower feelings of onr nature ; 
although when naturally powerful, or when undisci- 
plined by the superior faculties, it fearfully increases the 
activity of the lower feelings. Self-respect or esteem 
of ourselves, when associated, as it ought to be, with the 
moral sentiments, is a powerful instrument of good. 
It is absolutely essential to decision of character, and 
to the maintenance of a straightforward course in the 
path of rectitude ; for, as we can have no reliance upon 
ourselves without it, no faith in our own judgment, we 
shall be continually Hable to swerve on one side or the 
other under the influences of opposing opinions. It is 
better, perhaps, on the whole, to have too much rather 
than too little of the feeling. Of those who have put 
themselves prominently forward in the world, either 
for good or for evil, few have been deficient in it. The 
fear of self -degradation is a powerful aid in the resist- 
ance against temptation. Honor, which is in most 
cases another name for Self-esteem, when properly 
founded, can not allow its possessor to descend to mean- 
ness, to improper pursuits or companions, and it will do 
much to prevent the debasing indulgence of the inferior 
propensities.*^ 

due not to fact, but to her mental development, and she 
was going to leave the institution and go home with him. 
And she did go home, that day, and she has not been 
back, though years have passed. 

*In the United States we have really a deficiency of 
Self-esteem. We live too little in the atmosphere of per- 




J. F. G. MITTAG, M.D. 
SELF-ESTEEM. 



PUTE X. 



The Self-Hegarding Feelings. 67 

Richter says : '^ Do not fear the rise of the sentiment 
of honor, which is nothing worse than the rough hust 
of Self-esteem, or the expanded cover of the tender 
wings which elevate above the earth, and its flowers. 
But to raise and ennoble that honor of the individual 
into honor of the race, and that again into honor of the 
worth of mind, never praise him who has gained a 
prize, but those who rank below him ; give the honor- 
able title, not as a distinction for the ^eps which have 
been mounted, but as a notification of neighborhood to 
what is higher ; and lastly, let your praise afford more 
pleasure because it shows that you are pleased than for 
the distinction it gives." 



sonal independence, and too much in that of vanity, ambi- 
tion, and the applause of men. We think people are proud, 
when they are only vain, fond of dress, show, and extrava- 
gant display. Self-esteem does not boast, dress, or 
act for the eyes and approval of others. It proudly stands 
erect, does duty as dictated by reason and conscience or 
necessity, exercises economy if liberal expenditure can not 
be indulged in, dresses plainly if necessary, and lives in 
small houses if no better can be afforded, and frankly says, 
*' I would like better things and a higher style of living, 
but I can not afford them." When we have more Self- 
esteem we shall build fewer mansions and more cottages — 
there will be fewer decorations in houses, furniture, and 
equipage, and also fewer mortgages, less pretense, and 
more solid worth and happiness. Men may properly con- 
sole themselves with pride in a long line of honorable 
ancestors, and wisely resolve not to break the chain which 
should link the past with the future, and when tempted 
in any way to belittle their character and do dishonorable 
things, may properly say with one of old, * * Is thy servant 
a dog that he should do this thing ? " 



68 The Education of the Feelings. 

And what is a proper foundation for self-respect? 
The consciousness that our feelings and conduct obey, 
in the main, the dictates of duty and benevolence, and 
that these latter reign too powerfully in our minds to 
permit any im worthy passion to acquire dominion over 
us ; in fact, to feel assured that the man predominates 
in us, and not the mere animal. If, instead of this 
ground for self-respect, we value ourselves upon pos- 
sessions, external advantages, or accomplishments, upon 
anything whatever which appeals to our inferior nature. 
Self-esteem will degenerate into self-importance and 
pride. 

In children we continually see the faculty called into 
exercise by objects that should never be allowed to ex- 
cite it ; they are noticed for being ^^ nicely dressed," or 
for their good looks ; for their activity and cleverness 
in some particular way ; for being able to recite fluently 
a number of words with which their memory has been 
loaded without much thought of their meaning ; and 
for numberless things which have no excellence in them- 
selves, but which produce an abundant crop of conceit. 

We have sometimes thought that at a very early age, 
the feeling of self-importance is unduly excited in chil- 
dren, even under the most enlightened management. 
The solicitude which they observe in all around them 
for their comfort and enjoyment, the watchful care 
which even anticipates their wants and wishes, the im- 
mediate sympathy which all their feelings receive, con- 
spire to give them ideas of their own importance des- 
tined to be cruelly upset when the attractions of infancy 
are over ; if, indeed, these ideas do not produce a last- 
ing impression on the character. 



TJie Self'Iiegarding Feelings. 69 

If a child lias naturally a large share of the disposi- 
tion under consideration, reproof, unless very judiciously 
administered, and still more contempt or ridicule, will 
be apt to increase rather than to subdue it. Instead of 
inducing humility, they will urge on the feeling to its 
perversion — seK-sufficiency, and create, perhaps, a mo- 
roseness and closeness of feeling, which beyond any- 
thing else shuts up the mind from happiness and im- 
provement. 

When the feeling is in excess, there will be a con- 
stant use of '^ I," and " MyseK." Everything will 
center in or move around this " I, myself," and every- 
thing will be regarded only as it has reference to this 
important first person singular. Such children will 
constantly require to be kept back. The charm of 
modesty will always be wanting in their character. 
They will open a conversation with strangers on terms 
of perfect equality, like a young acquaintance of ours, 
whose comments upon his mother's method in the edu- 
cation of his younger brothers and sisters show how far 
more capable of the task he conceives himself to be. 
In early management, it will be better not to notice 
this seK-worship and self-exaltation ; to be careful not 
to repeat the child's sayings and doings, and, above all 
things, to endeavor to excite an interest in things them- 
selves for their own sake. Interest children all day long 
in their studies, pleasures, and pursuits, and give them 
no time to think of themselves. Of course we do not 
mean by this, to exclude self-knowledge, of all knowl- 
edge the most desirable in such a case. If children are 
made to feel how all that we possess of real beauty and 
excellence, whether in body or mind, is the gift of 



70 The Education of the Feelings. 

God, without any merit on our part — how much more 
of excellence and beauty we might possess, had we 
used due diligence — ^how great are our faults and defi- 
ciencies, compared with that excellence of which we 
can conceive — ^it is almost sure to engender humility, 
and prevent them from thinking "more highly of 
themselves than they ought to think." 

The feeling may be too weak, and then it leads to 
irresolution and indecision, to the want of manliness 
and independence of character, to over-submissiveness 
and the desire to lean on others — under these circum- 
stances it must be stimulated. 

The abuses of this feeling, ia excess, are very numer- 
ous. In childhood it gives rise to pettishness and will- 
fulness, to impatience of control, and rebellion against 
authority, and to an extreme sensitiveness and readiness 
to take offense. Later in life, it produces pride, arro- 
gance, conceit, love of power, dogmatism, insolence, 
tyranny ; everything is overrated connected with self ; 
in common language, " the geese are all swans." 

There are many checks to this feeling in excess. 
Children may be taught how Self-esteem, in proportion 
to its natural strength, always colors the seK-estimate 
they make of all their actions and possessions ; how all 
they are and all they have are derived, and their thank- 
fulness and pride should be directed to the true source 
from whence they are derived ; and above all, they 
should be taught never to pride themselves on what 
they possess, but if at all on the manner in which they 
make use of their possessions. 



Love of 'Approbation, 71 

LOYE OF APPEOBATION. 

(approbatiyeness). 

The desire of standing well in the estimation of 
others, is one of the most powerful motives to human 
action, and as public opinion generally takes the side 
of virtue, is a strong check upon the predominance of 
the selfish passions in society ; nevertheless, being as it 
is but a selfish and inferior motive, it must be carefully 
confined within its proper bounds, and the feeling will 
then only induce so much regard for the approval of 
others, as is consistent with the dictates of the moral 
sense. So guarded, it becomes the source of one of 
our purest pleasures — the sympathy and approbation of 
the wise and good. 

Under proper culture, children in early infancy will 
look to the approbation of their parents as their chief 
reward, and to their disapprobation as their chief pun- 
ishment. The sentiment is, therefore, one of high im- 
portance in the first stage of existence, and the more it 
is exercised in that direction, to the exclusion of all 
other rewards and penalties, the better. But as the in- 
tellectual and moral powers grow in strength, its im- 
portance will proportionately decrease, until it attains 
its just rank among the other instincts. This craving 
for admiration is, however, so rarely managed judi- 
ciously in childhood, that we seldom see it in mature 
years subservient to the higher powers. When other 
feelings have arrived at sufficient strength and ma- 
turity, it would be as well to drop the appeal to this 
altogether. Let the motive be love, or respect, or con- 
science, or kindness ; not praise. Praise, which is the 



72 The Education of the Feelings. 

expression of the approval of others, is continually sub- 
stituted as the incentive to good conduct, for those 
higher motives to which we have before alluded — the 
satisfaction which results from having done right, and 
of having assisted to make others happy. "Let Miss 
Such-an-one hear how well you can say pretty prayers/' 
is a case in point. The lesson sometimes takes a worse 
form. " Do so and so, my darling, and then mamma 
will love you better than brother Harry." It would 
be well if the pleasure of parents in good conduct took 
oftener the character of sympathy than of approbation, 
that the expression should not be so much in the form, 
" You have been good to-day, and mamma loves you 
for it," as, " Because mamma loves you, she is glad 
with you that you have been good to-day." 

It is not intended that praise should not accompany 
right conduct, but that the pleasure thus excited should 
be kept subordinate to the higher one. When the 
higher one appears to be a sufficient motive, a wise 
parent will be careful how he add a lower one, lest it 
should be the means of weakening instead of strength- 
ening the power of the former. He will make his 
child understand, that the world frequently condemns 
what is right and approves what is wrong, and, there- 
fore, to enable himself to persevere in the path of 
duty, he must learn to feel the consciousness of self- 
approval a suflScient reward. Self-respect is necessary 
to this end, and with such a view the feeling which ex- 
cites it must be cultivated, if it appear to be naturally 
deficient. 

Richter says, " The desire to please with some good 
quality which rules only in the visible or external king- 



^ ^S55?J^^^ 




LEON GAMBETTA. 
APPROBATIVENESS. 



PLATE Xl. 



Love of Approbation. Y3 

dom, is so innocent and right, that the opposite, to be 
indiJfferent, or disagreeable, to the eye or ear, would 
even be wrong. "Why should a painter dress to please 
the eye, and not his wife ? I grant yon there is a 
poisonous vanity and love of approbation ; that, 
namely, which lowers the inner kingdom to an outer 
one, spreads out sentiments as snaring nets for the eye 
and ear, and degradingly buys and sells itself with that 
which has real inherent value. Let a girl try to please 
with her appearance, and her dress, but never with 
holy sentiments; a so-called fair devotee, who knew 
that she was so, would worship nothing save herself, 
the devil, and her admirer. Every mother, and every 
friend of the family, should keep a careful watch over 
their own wish to praise — often as dangerous as that to 
blame — which so easily names and praises an uncon- 
scious grace in the expressions of the affections, in the 
mien, or in the sentiments, and thereby converts it for- 
ever into a conscious one ; that is to say, kills it.'' 

In some children, little girls especially, this appetite 
for admiration is so keen and insatiable, that not a 
word, look, or action escapes untinctured by some 
covert design upon the admiration of bystanders, and 
childhood loses entirely its two greatest charms, sim- 
plicity and impulsiveness. It is most unfortunate 
when a mother is unconscious of the strength of this 
propensity in her child, and deceives herself by mis- 
taking the goodness on the surface for real excellence, 
and fosters the weakness every minute by indiscrimi- 
nating praise. Two children may be seen, the one with 
large love of approbation, the other with small. The 
latter will sit complacently eating her sweetmeats with- 
4 



74 Tlie Education of the Feelings, 

out offering any to her companions, nothing disturbed 
by their longings and the half injunctions of the elder 
bystanders to be a good, generous child, and give some 
away. The other child, with perhaps an equal love of 
eating, will eagerly and somewhat ostentatiously share 
all with her playfellows. The difference in the degree 
of virtue in the two children is not so great that one 
should be reproached as a little selfish glutton, and the 
other extolled as a pattern of generosity ; the differ- 
ence is simply, that the one likes sugar-plums better 
than praise, and the other likes praise better than 
sugar-plums. Nevertheless, in nine cases out of ten, 
the disposition of the latter is very much to be pre- 
ferred, since the desire for approbation is a much 
higher feeling than the mere animal pleasure of eat- 
ing ; and a generous action, done even from an imper- 
fect motive, renders a person more fit for the reception 
of better infiuences. The greedy child is hardened 1 

more and more after every act of greediness, and still : 

more if it is scolded and made to dislike its companions | 

by being placed in odious comparison with them ; but j 

a sunshine will be reflected upon the little giver from I 

the happy, grateful faces of the other children, which | 

would be quite sufficient reward, if not overlaid and 
extinguished by an eulogium. 

Commendation in words is more likely to foster 
vanity than a kiss or look of affection. Comparisons 
with other children should be carefully avoided, and all 
that induces self-consciousness. For this reason, tales 
for their entertainment should be more about good 
children, that is, children who are naturally good with- 
out any parade, than about good and bad children. 



Zove of Approbation. To 

Let us now speak of thi? faculty in its abuse. Tlie 
love of dress exists in the present age in great excess, 
but let us be careful not to run into an opposite ex- 
treme. Beauty of body is desirable as well as excel- 
lence of mind, and in checking too great a display of 
personal vanity in our daughter, we must not on the 
contrary inflict upon society an ill dressed, ungraceful, 
slatternly eccentric, who values only mental superiority, 
to the entire neglect of the equally legitimate mode of 
pleasing by the person. Eichter says : " While man 
finds a cothurnus (buskin), on which to raise and show 
himself to the world in the judge's seat, literary rank, 
the professor's chair, or the car of victory, woman has 
nothing save her outward appearance w^hereon to raise 
and display her inner nature ; why pull from nnder her 
this fowly footstool of Venus ? .... We will now pass 
to the clothes -devil, as the old theologians formerly 

called the toilet The preachers do not sufficiently 

bear in mind, that to a woman her dress is the third 
organ of the soul (the body is the second and the brain 
the first), and every upper garment one organ more. 
.... Woman's love of dress has, along with cleanli- 
ness, which dwells on the very borders between physi- 
cal nature and morality, a next-door neighbor in purity 
of heart. Why are all girls who go out to meet princes 
with addresses and flowers, dressed in white? The 
chief color of the mentally and physically pure English 
woman is white. Hess found white banners used most 
in free countries ; and I find States all the more modest 
the freer they are. I will become no surety for the in- 
ner purity of a woman who only puts on the color of 
purity when walking in the streets.'' .... With 



?6 The Education of the Feelings, 

reference to the over-love of dress, he says : " Animate 
the heart, and it no longer thirsts for common air, but 

for ether. No one is less vain than a bride As> 

cribe to cleanliness, symmetry, propriety of dress, and 
all the aesthetic requisites of beauty, their brilliant and 
true worth ; so a daughter, like a poet, forgets herself 
in her art and in her ideal, and her own beauty in what 
is beautiful." .... Finally, he says : ''Woman's body 
is the pearl oyster ; whether this be brilliant and many- 
colored, or rough and dark from the place of its birth, 
yet the pure white pearl within alone gives it value. I 
mean by this thy heart, thou good maiden — thou who 
expectest not to be appreciated, but only to be mis- 
understood ! " 

The ordinary modes of school-education tend to fos- 
ter the excess of this emotion. To stand above his 
school-fellows is too much the object of the school-boy's 
ambition, and he is naturally tempted to rejoice at their 
want of success which keeps them below him, rather 
than in their advance together with himself. The 
meanness and unworthy passions which often enter into 
the contest for a prize, are faithful types of those which 
the world displays on a larger scale. Envy and jealousy 
spring out of the love of approbation in excess, when 
uncontrolled by superior feelings, and all methods of 
education which tend to excite them are to be con- 
demned. 

Zschokke says : " It is treason to the holy nature of 
childhood to address ourselves in the management of 
children rather to the covetousness of sordid self-inter- 
est, than to the innate consciousness of the true and 
the noble. The charlatanry of pubhc school examina- 



Love of Ajpprolation. Y^ 

tions was banished from my seminary. They may 
sometimes prove the merits of the teachers, but never 
those of the pupils." 

Childish vanity, another of the signs of this excess, 
should never be treated as a crime; in some instances 
it might be advisable to let a child learn by experience 
the paltriness of the enjoyment arising from its gratifi- 
cation. For example : ^ "0. was very vain of some 
jewels, the gift of an injudicious relative ; or as she 
emphatically called them, her do-ills. Day after day 
she asked to wear them. Day after day her mother 
said ' No,' but finding that to refuse was of no use, 
she was puzzled what course to adopt, until it oc- 
curred to her to let one fire put another out. Ac- 
cordingly the next time C. applied to her for permis- 
sion to wear her do-ills^ she answered : ' Certainly, wear 
them if you please; but you know these things are 
valuable because your mamma's dear friend gave them 
to you ; they must neither be lost nor spoiled. If you 
have them on, you must remain in this room, and even 
I think I should say, upon this chair, in order to be sure 
they are safe.' C. consented to the terms, and joyfully 
bedecked herself with her finery, and then stationed 
herself upon a chair. It was a fine evening in August, 
and the other children were out; however, fgr two 
hours C. persevered in sitting on the chair. At length 
she begged to have them taken off, and from that time 
to this (two years) the do-ills have never been men- 
tioned but with an uncomfortable feeling and a blush. 
The plan here adopted answered very well to check 



* Monthly Repository. 




t8 The Education of the Peelings, 

vanity in that direction ; but against vanity abont dress 
and all other things, there is but one real remedy, the 
substitution of love of excellence for the love of ex- 
celling; the development of the intellect also will 
bring about a just appreciation of the value of dress, 
etc., when weighed against mental superiority.' ''"^ 

Bashfulness arises from an excess of the Love of Ap- 
probation, and modesty is ordinarily connected with a 
moderate Self-esteem, but it has been well observed : 
*' Bashfulness and modesty, although so frequently con- 
founded, have yet no necessary connection or relation- 
sbip, and either may exist without the presence of the 
other. The former, or shamefacedness, as it is often 
called, is a weakness not unfrequently belonging to the 
physical constitution, and of which every one would 
gladly be relieved. It may be a quality of those even 
who are most impure in their feelings, and when un- 
restrained, most immodest in their conversation. Mod- 
esty, on the other hand, pertains especially to the mind, 
is the subject of education, and the brightest, and I had 
almost said, the rarest gem that adorns the human 
character. That awkward diffidence, so frequently met 
with in the young of both sexes, is of a nature, too 
often, very little akin to modesty." 

However useful the desire of estimation, the love of 
applause, fame, or glory may be, yet it must be admit- 
ted that the feeling from which these legitimate uses 
spring is far too strong in the present day ; for it is this 
feeling which gives to public opinion and to fashion 
their power. How much is done from the fear of the 
folk, and of what Mrs. Grundy will say, instead of from 



* Monthly Kepository. 



Love of Ajpjprobation. 79 

the fear of God, or of doing wrong ; and who dares to 
be unfashionable, although following fashion may cost 
him all real good ! Much, if not most, of what we re- 
gard as virtue in the world, is merely the tribute which 
vice pays to virtue — it is' merely the seeming which 
this faculty puts on in deference to society, and to gain 
the name and wages of virtue without its reality ; it is 
not real gold, only counterfeit. This feeling is essen- 
tially selfish in its nature, and its characteristic is to 
love distinction, not the excellence by which alone dis- 
tinction ought to be acquired ; it is satisfied with ap- 
pearing to be, without being. And herein is the differ- 
ence between the higher sentiments and this : that these 
act^ the other only talks / and yet it is very difficult for 
most people to distinguish between the counterfeit vir- 
tue and the real — to distinguish between what is done 
for applause and out of deference to the opinion of the 
society in which we live, and what is done from a real 
sense of rectitude. People are even very apt to deceive 
themsel/ces in this particular. They have all their lives 
been wearing the clothes of virtue, and talking virtu- 
ously, and seeming virtuous, and even doing many vir- 
tuous acts; and they wonder at the end of their lives 
that* they are esteemed so lightly. But let such per- 
sons examine themselves carefully and honestly, as to 
whether there has not been more seeming than doing, 
and whether they have not taken care to get paid in ap- 
plause for even what they have done. Society, in con- 
sequence, instinctively feels that it owes them nothing. 
They have blown their own trumpet before them — they 
have let their right hand know what their left has done, 
and they have had their reward. 

That too many work for thanks and gratitude, and 



80 The Education of the Feelings. 

not from real benevolence or a sense of duty, is evi- 
denced by the too common saying, " What is the nse of 
helping such people, you get no thanks for your pains," 
or '^ What is the use of attempting to do good, you 
meet with nothing but ingratitude for your trouble," 
etc. ; whereas, had they been virtuous for virtue's sake 
— ^from a sense of duty or benevolence — no thanks or 
gratitude, which is only praise in another shape, would 
have been expected. The guinea which is extracted 
from us in our passage between the plates held by two 
fashionable or titled ladies — do we ever think of it aft- 
erward, or watch its application ? which we should do, 
if the good of the cause for which it was given was our 
object, instead of the payment of a tax to public opinion 
and the fear of the folk : many subscriptions, and much 
church-going, emanate from love of approbation alone. 
If we do good to be paid in gratitude, we are certain 
to be disappointed, and we must learn to do good for 
its own sake, or not at all. The people generally can 
not raise themselves above their own state of feeling, 
if it be one in which the selfish feelings habitually pre- 
dominate. They judge others by themselves, and can 
scarcely conceive of a really unselfish motive; or if 
they can, they would regard an action as folly whicbjJias 
no direct bearing on self-interest. The philanthropist, 
therefore, must expect to have his motives and actions 
misjudged and misrepresented. If as a clergyman he 
visits the poor, he must hear it said, he is only doing 
his duty, he is paid for it, and he wants to get people 
to go to church because he lives by it, the same as an- 
other man lives by his shop and is anxious to get cus- 
tomers, If hQ WQuld serve the poor through the estab- 



Love of Approhation. Si 

lislimeiit of public institutions, it is considered that 
power, and place, and social consideration and position 
are his motives; and the people have some excuse for 
this mode of knowing things, for they have been too 
much courted and flattered for the power and influence 
which their numerical force often confers, and not from 
any wish to do real good to themselves. We must learn 
also to do good for its own sake, because the more we 
study the cause of the evils inherent in society the 
more we must become convinced that eleemosynary 
charity, which alone is popular, and paid in thanks and 
praise, tends rather to foster and nourish the evil than 
to cure it. To insist upon the only means which are 
really efficacious to raise the condition of the poor, viz : 
providence, prudence, forethought, economy, education, 
and to help the poor to help themselves, is not the pop- 
ular course. 

There are other minor abuses, such as flattering oth- 
ers, that they may praise us — sacrificing truth and sin- 
cerity rather than give offense ; but their notice comes 
more properly imder another head. If Conscientiousness 
be naturally strong and well cultivated, there is no fear 
of the love of praise leading to insincerity and meanness. 

But everywliere the spirit of democracy is on the in- 
crease, and all men, whether consciously or not, are 
aiding it by their exertions ; and with this increase, and 
the penny press, and the greatly increasing facility of 
communication, and, in fact, with everything that en- 
ables man to act more directly upon man, public opin- 
ion becomes more powerful and irresistible, and in pro- 
portion as it thus becomes more powerful is it lowered 
to the mental and moral level of the increasing multi- 

4* 



82 The Education of the Feelings, 

tilde from whence that power is derived. I^o doubt 
tliis is good on the whole, as the world is made for the 
happiness of all, not of a class ; but, nevertheless, it 
everywhere tends to exalt mediocrity and to make pop- 
ular that only which is capable of being understood and 
appreciated, not by the highest minds and intellects, 
but the lowest. On this account it is that above all 
things moral training must be directed to enable chil- 
dren to act in perfect independence of the public voice, 
and carefully to study and to do what is right irrespect- 
ive of it. In America few have moral courage to 
breathe a whisper against public opinion, and with the 
increasing power of the majority in this country (En- 
gland) we are daily approaching a similar condition of 
mental slavery. We have also equally to guard against 
the misrule of fashion ; for, as the distinguished author 
of "Adam Bede'^ says, "Our moral sense learns the 
manners of good society, and smiles when others smile." 

The study of the mental faculties, and the legitimate 
objects to which they point, will show us that mankind 
have set up false gods — that they worship golden calves 
— that the true end and aim of life is sacrificed to these 
idols, and that if we can but free ourselves from an un- 
due thralldom to custom and habit and fashion, we may 
be much happier, and attain all that is worth living for 
at a much less cost, and at a much less sacrifice. To 
achieve this emancipation, we must be early taught not 
to fear the world's dread laugh, more especially when 
we are in the right ; we must be prepared " to stand 
approved in the sight of God, though worlds judge us 
perverse." 

Let children, then, be early taught to set a true and 



Love of Approbation. 83 

just value upon public opinion. A thousand fools 
can not make one wise man, for nouglit multiplied by 
nought, even a thousand times, is still nought. Show 
them how the world has always treated its greatest men 
— ^how it has stoned its Prophets, crucified its Saviours, 
martyred its Apostles. Show how fickle, how in dis- 
criminating it is to this day — how ignorance speaks with 
the same confidence, or even with more than knowl- 
edge — how the heights and depths of the greatest minds 
are measured at once by the conceit of the smallest. 
Show how hard it is for people to praise, how easy to 
blame ; for many think they show their sense by being 
able to find fault, but it requires a much higher sense 
to find out and appreciate excellencies. Call the atten- 
tion of the young to the kind of criticisms thus current 
of both men and things in this much dreaded society, 
and let them say, if they really seek excellence, whether 
they ought to value such criticism. It requires great 
talent and long study to master any one subject ; but 
when they have done so, let them listen to the flippant, 
trivial, conceited, shallow judgments of their acquaint- 
ance upon it, and let them learn from that to appreciate 
the worth of public opinion, and judge whether the 
desire of fame, based upon such a public opinion, is 
worth striving for, or ought much to influence their 
motives to action. To appreciate a great man, requires, 
if not one as great, still a great man, and the judgments 
of the world therefore must be either borrowed or erro- 
neous — more frequently the latter, as self-conceit usually 
supplies any deflciency of talent ; 

* ' Whatever Nature has in worth denied, 
She gives in large recruits of needful pride. " 



84: The Editcation of the Feelings. 

Upon whom does Fame bestow her rewards ? Really 
upon those who most deserve them. Does conscience ap- 
prove the judgment even of the most intimate friends 
with respect to our characters ; how then can we expect 
the world, or posterity, to do justice ; and who would 
value praise or blame that is not discriminating and just ? 
The originators of useful reforms are generally perse- 
cuted, for they get the ill-will of all who lived on the 
abuses sought to be removed, while those who are bene- 
fited usually think the good comes from nature. They 
who really work, and in the modest quiet of their stud- 
ies gradually prepare the world for new truths, are un- 
noticed and neglected ; but he who becomes the mouth- 
piece of this public opinion, when formed — who has 
brains enough to appreciate, but not to originate, and 
who can talk — this is the man whom the world pays, 
and fame immortalizes. 

The world scarcely yet recognizes any higher mo- 
tives than those that arise from Self-esteem and Love of 
Approbation, that is, the love of power and of fame and 
glory, which is only another name for applause — the 
stupid staring and the loud huzzas of the multitude. 
The hero and the silly coquette are still put upon an 
equality as to motive ; both are in pursuit of fame and 
glory ! Power and fame, as means, are perfectly 
legitimate and worthy objects of desii^e, but not as 
ends ; as Tennyson says : 

" Fame with man, 
Being but ampler means to serve mankind, 
Should have small rest or pleasure in herself, 
But work as vassal to the larger love, 
That dwarfs the petty love of one to one. " 



Love of ApjpTo'bation, 85 

As ends, as soinetliing to rest satisfied with, nothing 
can be more contemptible. The love of power and of 
applause are perfectly self-regarding, and whatever fine- 
sounding names they may take, such as love of fame or 
glory, must be looked upon with great suspicion as mo- 
tives to action. The trumpet of fame has hitherto 
been blown before false heroes, and glory has too often 
waded through blood and slaughter to the world's de- 
struction and desolation. Yet, a young world, making 
its gods " after its own image," could conceive no 
higher motive with which to invest them. They were 
made jealous of power, greedy and still more jealous 
of praise, and their glory was regarded as the end and 
aim of creation. Power was worshiped for its own 
sake, without reference to the end to which it was ap- 
plied — even though it was generally recognized as 
swift to damn, slow to save — and praise unceasing and 
indiscriminating was offered up as the most acceptable 
service and as the best means of turning this power to 
individual advantage. Gratitude toward a benefactor 
is a most noble feeling to be fostered and encouraged ; 
but to praise another, whether God or man, for what 
can be got by it, is, of all feelings, the meanest. A 
noise of pots and pans and sounding kettles is used by 
tribes in Africa to prevent an eclipse, and an equally 
senseless noise of " praise " is used by other tribes to 
prevent other anticipated disasters, no doubt with the 
same effect. This abuse of the truly '' self -regarding '* 
feelings is most blighting to all our higher aspirations, 
particularly if it have a religious sanction, and if any 
portion of such abuse has descended to our own day, 
the sooner it can be obliterated the better. The abuse 



86 The Education of the Feelings, 

of Self-esteem is pride; of Approbativeness, vanity, 
and in tlie present little insight that there is into char- 
acter, they are often mistaken for each other in their 
mode of manifestation. 

Love of Approbation and Benevolence being large 
give a great disposition to oblige and make it difficult 
to say " no " ; the same joined to good Conscientious- 
ness, moderate Self-esteem, and Secretiveness, produce 
great openness, truthfulness, and sincerity, and pleas- 
ing and obliging manners."^ 



* Nothing is more common than to hear people speak of 
the action of Approbativeness as the foundation of pride. 
We can make the distinction between Approbativeness 
and Self-esteem clear, by the following incident : 

A farmer of our acquaintance was about to start for the 
village to sell a load of potatoes, which he had just been 
digging. His wife came running to the door and said, 
* * Why, John, I hope you are not going to the village with 
that old ragged coat on!" *' Yes, I am; they all know me 
at the village." 

The next day he drove up from the field with another 
load, which he was going to take for sale to an adjoining 
town. The wife, with extra anxiety, accosted him. ** Now, 
John, you certainly must not go with that old coat. Wait 
a minute, and I will bring you a better one." He replied, 
''' Nobody hnows me there J*^ 

The wife, having larger Approbativeness, wanted her 
husband to look tidy and respectable when he was going 
to the village where they went to church, to the stores, 
public festivals, etc., because they were so well known 
there — and when he went elsewhere, she desired him to 
dress well even when in the rough, dirty work of handling 
and selling potatoes, because the people were wholly or 
mainly strangers. The husband, on the contrary, with 
moderate Approbativeness, cared little for a tidy appear- 



TJie Social Affections. 87 

THE SOCIAL AFFECTIONS. 

AMATIVENESS. 

This feeling produces love between the sexes. It is 
not developed in early life, and the period of its devel- 
opment is different in different constitutions. At the 
time of its coming into activity the moral feelings also 
acquire greater strength, and become more active ; its 
end is marriage. Before the period at which-this feel- 
ing is developed, the boy or girl ought to have been 
instructed in the physiology of both mind and body — 
in respect to the use and abuse of all their faculties, 
and with a properly balanced development, there is no 
fear when all the other feelings have been properly 
trained, that this one will be abused. The mystery 
usually made to surround this subject in no way fur- 
thers the promotion of true modesty, and ordinarily 
lets loose upon the mind much misdirected feeling, dis- 
turbing its balance, and unsettling its object. They 
whose experience is intended to guide the young 



ance while doing dirty work, and having larger Self-esteem, 
he was independent of a public sentiment which might be 
supposed to demand good clothes while doing rough work. 
So he declined to change, because they all knew hini in 
one place, and because, in the other place, none knew him. 
His motives and feelings were just the opposite of those of 
his wife. He manifested pride and independence. She 
would have worn nice clothes while doing inappropriate 
work, to please the eyes of both acquaintances and stran- 
gers, and perhaps have excited, in both, criticism for her ill- 
timed and improvident mode of dress. In this she would 
show her vanity and want of proper independence, while 
his course showed that he had more pride than vanity. 



88 The Education of the Feelings, 

should recollect that the object of their instruction 
should be to refine and idealize this propensity, and to 
associate it always with the higher feelings ; for when 
the fueling is constitutionally strong, it may act irre- 
spective of all but itself. An all-absorbing feeling of 
love may co-exist with a perfect knowledge that the 
object of this passion is altogether unworthy of it. 
Never forget, therefore, ^' that a man has choice to be- 
gin love, but not to end it." 

Love, based upon this faculty, becomes a passion and 
is, undoubtedly, the strongest feeling in our nature. 
While it exists it absorbs all other feelings, or, at least, 
is made the center around which all other interests and 
feelings revolve. It changes the whole nature, fre- 
quently giving force and power and brilliancy to the 
dullest clods of earth. But under its scorching in- 
fluence, the homely, every-day duties of life are dried 
up and become tasteless and insipid. It is a tempera- 
ture in which the common virtues can not exist — they 
pale and die. Love, as a passion, therefore, is not in- 
tended to be a common state of mind, or ever to last 
long. Probably our first love ought ever to be our 
last, for its commencement, in all well-regulated minds, 
being always controllable, it ought to be indulged only 
when it can lead to matrimony, and the use of so in- 
tense a heat of feeling is then to fuse two individual 
souls into one for life. Having answ^ered this purpose 
of making two people one for life, the feeling is no 
longer an all-absorbing passion, but takes its place 
among the other feelings in due relative proportion to 
them, first as love, and then as affection. Infinite mis^ 
chief is done by that class of writers whose works tend 



,_^!^"' 



,^-,C^' 







M. SOLER. 
AMATIVENESS. 



PLATE XII. 



The Social Affections. 89 

to weaken the influence of the marriage tie, represent- 
ing it as less sacred and less binding by nature than it 
is by custom ; who make a plaything of love, and 
whose heroes and heroines indulge a succession of little 
passions, not thinking the affection which remains 
when passion is dead good enough for such exalted 
souls, whether the object of that affection be husband, 
wife, betrothed, or what not. This getting up a pas- 
sion for one object after another, under the plea of 
sympathy of soul and intellect, superiority to conven- 
tionality, etc., may be a circumstance of much interest 
and pleasurable excitement in the pages of a novel, 
and even interwoven with much beauty of thought and 
sentiment. But in real life such principles are false, 
dangerous, ruinous. If love has been allowed to ex- 
pand into passion at a proper time and upon a proper 
object, and if marriage has resulted, what were two 
people before, become so thoroughly one, that none of 
those cross loves take place afterward which form the 
staple of the works of the writers we have characterized, 
and are the sole source of their absorbing interest. 
Marriage, under any circumstances, without love, is 
opposed to all the laws of our nature, and no writer 
can paint too strongly the evils which result ; but it is 
only in fiction that these evils are mitigated by casting 
away the duties which marriage always brings. 

As marriage without love is inherently wrong, it can 
not be made right by the dying injunction of a parent, 
or from the wish to save a parent from poverty or even 
ruin. We frequently meet with works of fiction, in 
which this self-sacrifice is eloquently represented as the 
highest heroism. But however high-sounding, this is 



90 * The Education of the Feelings. 

false morality, for supposing that it were right for chil- 
dren to sacrifice themselves for their parents — a young 
life to an old one, of which we think there is reason to 
doubt ; yet it can not be right to sacrifice those to whom 
they are married, which they would do by marrying 
them from any other motive than because they loved 
them. To do anything that we would not do from the 
clear dictates of our own reason and conscience, out of 
deference to the dead or dying, is gross superstition, or 
at best, it is but the lower feelings of affection master- 
ing the higher. 

Marriages are made in heaven, that is, are of the 
soul's affections ; but for the sake of the offspring they 
require to be publicly registered on earth. Marriage is 
no longer generally recognized as a religious ceremony, 
and such registry is now considered by law as sufficient. 
As it has frequently happened in other observances, the 
spirit has been lost in the form, and the marriage rite 
or register is alone thought of in speaking of marriage ; 
whereas the mere form which consults the interests of 
society, without the union of the affections, is no more 
a marriage than the taking the teetotal pledge is tem- 
perance ; and marriage may truly exist, although pecul- 
iar circumstances may have made the form impossible ; 
but the good of society requires that such marriages 
should not be formed, for the sake of the general law 
with which that good is at present so intimately con- 
nected.^* 



I 



* No emotion is more influential in character than this, 
yet in respect to none is there more ignorance and error on 
the subject- of its due regulation and training. Virtue, 
modesty, and morality, as people have learned to recognize 



Philo^progenitiveness. 91 

PHILOPKOGENITIVENESS. 

(PAEENTAL LOYE). 

The law of offspring is what this term implies, but 
in the absence of children, its legitimate object, it is 
capable of taking a variety of other directions. It is 
sometimes manifested by children in a remarkable de- 
gree. In them it is generally directed toward the 
lower animals, and there are many good feelings and 
habits of mind which it excites and encourages. 

The child who loves his pet dog, his pet bird, sup- 



them, have been employed as a barrier against the dis- 
semination of any appropriate knowledge respecting the 
sexual instinct, and thousands of the best people in the 
world vainly imagine that ignorance in this direction is the 
great safeguard of the young. Meantime nature is devel- 
oping in their constitutions the love element, and it is not 
in the province of silence or prudery to ignore its power 
or neutralize its influence. These facts exist, and the true 
question is, shall this instinct be regulated by an enlight- 
ened intellect and sound moral sentiment, or shall it be 
permitted to revel in ignorance with all the vigor of a blind 
passion? A large share of the popular literature is calcu- 
lated to inflame this passion; and such is the perversion 
of public sentiment that no paper, intended for the million, 
can become popular and remunerative which is not largely 
filled with love stories; and three-quarters of the books in 
Sunday-school libraries are religious stories in which love 
and marriage are the culmination. Yet the parents of the 
Sunday-school pupils who read these pious love stories, 
would sternly repel physiological truth which would enable 
the young to regard thill subject from a scientific point of 
view, thereby gaining power to regulate their emotions by 
understanding them. They are thereby left to be the vio- 



92 The Education of the Feelings. 

plies its wants and protects it from danger, lie pays at- 
tention to its habits and learns how to make it happy. 
This love for his favorite may, and most likely will, 
extend itself to the whole sensitive creation. The 
knowledge he has thus acquired even of one individual, 
and the habit of tending it, will prevent him from 
showing cruelty to animals in general ; for cruelty more 
frequently originates in ignorance and thoughtlessness 
than in natural disposition. 

The manifestation of this propensity is not confined 
to the animate creation- -the inanimate claims a share. 
The little girl loves her doll, she dresses it, puts it care- 



tims of the torrid, malarial atmosphere of salacious litera- 
ture, albeit it may be covered with romantic, literary, and 
even religious gauze. We know that boys who are judi- 
ciously and thoroughly instructed by books and oral teach- 
ing before this emotion becomes active, may be kept, up 
to manhood, as pure in spirit and entirely free from vulgar 
associations of thought, as any good mother could wish 
her daughter to be. The same boys, if taught by prudish 
public sentiment to regard esoteric physiological subjects 
as something to be dreamed of in silence, with only the 
companionship of vulgar imagination, will become slaves, 
like others, to the hidden and unregulated fires which tend 
to consume and debase, instead of broadening and bless- 
ing the character. Marriage involves Amativeness, but the 
life-union of two lovers originates in the faculty of 

Conjugality, 
recognized and accepted by the leading American phrenol- 
ogists, though many years ago, spoken of as probable by 
some Europeans. This organ is located in the cerebrum 
outward from Philoprogenitiveness, while Amativeness is 
in the cerebellum. 

The office of this organ is to lead animals and man to 




FREDERICK FROEBEL. 

{Founder of Kindergarten.^ 
PHILOPROGENITIVENESS. 



PLATE XIII. 



PhUoprogenitiveness, OS 

fully to bed, soothes its imagined distresses, she teaches 
it the lessons she has herself been taught, and exhorts 
it to obedience in the tone and manner to which she is 
most accustomed from her own instructor. The knowl- 
edge we communicate we fix more deeply in our own 
minds, and so strongly is the desire of having some- 
thing to teach and something to take charge of im- 
planted within us, that we have known a little girl who 
had no companions, repeat her lessons and the instruc- 
tions given to herself, to a favorite rose-bush. 

select one sexual mate, and to live faithfully with that 
mate for life. Some animals choose a mate for life, others 
select every year, but the love, and its exercise, is indi- 
vidual and exclusive. 

Man embodies in himself all the faculties found in the 
lower animals, among which is the instinct for selecting 
and loving one beloved object. This exists in different 
persons in different degrees of strength; and when we find 
persons to whom the obligation of marriage is imprison- 
ment, and onerous, it will be found that their selection was, 
in the first place, an improper one, or the person is defi- 
cient in the faculty of Conjugality. 

Bigamy and polygamy are as unnatural as gluttony, 
theft, cowardice, instability, or the lack of any of the in- 
tellectual faculties. Men may be idiots, or very weak, in 
music, mechanism, finance, dignity, courage, and why not 
in the conjugal instinct? There are more people who can 
not distinguish tunes, than there are persons who do not 
desire to select and faithfully live with one conjugal mate. 
Some can not sing, cipher, or construct; some can not re- 
member forms or faces, history, words, or colors. Why 
i^hould not some lack conjugal love? For a full exposition 
of this interesting subject see '* Thoughts on Domestic 
Life," by Nelson Sizer. S. K Wells & Co., Publishers. 
Price, 25 cents. 



94 The Education of the Feelings, 

It is not often considered that Philoprogeuitiveness 
is a mere extension of tlie directly selfish feeling ; that 
the overweening fondness of parents for their own chil- 
dren, as their own^ is a branch of selfishness, and a 
powerful check upon the benevolent feelings. A most 
ridiculous manifestation of this feeling is the attempt 
at its transference to friends and visitors, and the show- 
ing-off of children before them. Aided by its strong 
light, a mother sees a thousand endearing characteristics 
in her offspring ; but such attributes are exactly those 
which can not or ought not to be displayed. If it is a 
little red baby or a very young child that is expected 
to be admired, then the visitor is the victim ; if an 
older child is expected to show off its pretty ways, its 
unconscious prettiness or virtue is transformed into a 
conscious one, and the child is then no longer pretty or 
virtuous. It is singular that all parents can see this 
mistake in others and yet so many practice it them- 
selves, forgetting that Philoprogeuitiveness, which is 
the love of our own children, does not necessarily ex- 
tend in a like degree to other people's. A more serious 
abuse of the faculty is where the father of a family 
toils to provide for his children, urges forward their in- 
terest in every possible way, spends his health, his life, 
in securing for them a favorable station in the world, 
and so thinks all his duties to society fulfilled ; when 
the mother satisfies her conscience in withdrawing from 
benevolent exertions, in relinquishing her place in the 
affections of her friends, because — " she has her family 
to attend to" — neither of them considering that the 
most valuable part of their children's education should 
be the witnessing of their efforts for the good of others, 



Phitojprogenitiveness, 9 5 

for tlie impravement of society, and promotion of gen- 
eral happiness. We frequently hear of a person who 
has thus cut herself off from all her duties to society 
to attend to her children, that she is a good mother ; 
why so is a tigress, in precisely the same sense. 

The children follow in the same course as the parents, 
and so the world makes little progress ; nor can it be 
expected to make any while the main object of parents 
in the education of their children is — not that they may 
be happy themselves in making others so — ^but, that 
" they may get along in the world." 

Much has been said and written about spoiling and 
pampering children, but we are disposed to think that 
there is more to fear from the opposite extreme of neg- 
lect and harshness. The great object in the manage- 
ment of children is to make them happy, to keep them 
constantly cheerful ; to allow no angry passion, no de- 
pressing feeling, no fears to take possession of the 
mind, but to keep the perpetual sunshine of hope and 
love always bright and clear. This can be done only 
by constant occupation, not in eating or mere amuse- 
ment, but in well-selected bodily and mental pursuits. 
Kindness and gentleness shown toward children, 
awaken the like in them. If anger be shown toward 
or before children, it arouses the same feeling in them. 
Firmness, not anger, is required in controlling them. 

Dr. Combe, in his work on the "' Management of 
Infancy/' says : " Let us, then, not deceive ourselves, 
but ever bear in mind, that, what we desire our chil- 
dren to become, we must endeavor to be before them. 
If we wish them to grow up kind, gentle, affectionate, 
upright, and true, we must habitually exhibit the same 



06 The Education of the Feelings. 

qualities as regulating principles in our ' conduct, be- 
cause these qualities act as so many stimuli to the re- 
spective faculties in the child. If we can not restrain 
our passions, but at one time overwhelm the young 
with kindness, and at another surprise and confound 
them by our caprice or deceit, we may, with as much 
reason, expect to ' gather grapes from thorns or figs 
from thistles,' as to develop moral purity and simplicity 
of character in them. It is vain to argue that, because 
the infant intellect is feeble, it can not detect the incon- 
sistency which we practice. The feelings and reason- 
ing faculties being perfectly distinct from each other, 
may, and sometimes do, act independently, and the 
feelings at once condemn, although the judgment may 
be unable to assign a reason for doing so. Here is 
another of the many admirable proofs which we meet 
with in the animal economy of the harmony and 
beauty which pervade all the works of God, and which 
render it impossible to pursue a right course without 
also doing a collateral good, or to pursue a wrong 
course without producing collateral evil. If the mother, 
for example, controls her own temper for the sake of 
her child, and endeavors systematically to seek the 
guidance of her higher and purer feelings in her gen- 
eral conduct, the good which results is not limited to 
the consequent improvement of the child. She her- 
self becomes healthier and happier, and every day adds 
to the pleasure of success. If the mother, on the other 
hand, gives way to fits of passion, selfishness, caprice, 
and injustice, the evil is by no means limited to the 
suffering which she brings upon herself. Her child 
also suffers both in disposition and happiness; and 



Philojprogeni1m)eness. &Y 

while the mother receives, in the one case, the love 
and regard of all who come into communication with 
her, she rouses, in the other, only their fear or 
dislike. The remarkable influence of the mother, in 
modifying the disposition and forming the character of 
the child, has long been observed ; but it has attracted 
attention chiefly in the instances of intellectual superi- 
ority. We have already seen that men of genius are 
generally descended from, and brought up by, mothers 
distinguished for high mental endowments. In these 
cases, the original organization and mental constitution 
inherited from the parent are no doubt chiefly influen- 
tial in the production of the genius. But many facts 
concur to show that the fostering care of the mother in 
promoting the development of the understanding, also 
contributes powerfully to the future excellence of the 
child ; and there is reason to believe that the predom- 
inance of the mother's influence upon the constitution 
of the offspring, in such cases, is partly to be ascribed 
to the care of the child devolving much more exclu- 
sively upon her than upon the father, during this the 
earliest and most impressionable period of its existence." 
Again, the Rev. 0. Anderson, to the same effect, 
says : " In their laudable anxiety, two parents, with a 
family of infants playing around their feet, are heard 
to say, ^ Oh ! what will, what can best educate these 
dear children ? ' I reply, Look to yourselves and your 
circumstances. Your example will educate them ; 
your conversation with your friends ; the business they 
see you transact ; the likings and dislikings you ex- 
press ; these will educate them ; your domestics will 
educate them ; the society you live in will educate 
5 



9^ The Education of the Peelings, 

them ; and whatever be your rank or situation in life, 
your home, your table, and your behavior there — these 
will educate them. To withdraw them from the un- 
ceasing and potent influence of these things is impossi- 
ble, except you were to withdraw yourself from them 
also. Some persons talk of beginning the education of 
their children the moment they are capable of forming 
an idea. Their education is already begun ; the edu- 
cation of circumstances— insensible education, which, 
like insensible perspiration, is of more constant and 
powerful effect, and of far more consequence to the 
habit than that which is direct and apparent. Its edu- 
cation goes on at every instant of time — you can 
neither stop it nor turn its course. Whatever these, 
then, have a tendency to make your children, these, in 
a great degree, you^ at least, should be persuaded they 
will be."^ 



* This propensity is ons of the most interesting subjects 
of study in the whole mental economy. And this interest 
is enhanced because of its tender, self-sacrificing nature, 
and because, also, it is possessed in many of the lower 
animals in as great a degree, and as perfect in manifes- 
tation, as it is in the best specimens of the human race. 

In all sentient life, wherever the young require parental 
care, the parents are endowed with the faculty to just such 
extent and degree as the needs of the young require. Some 
animals and insects have enough of this endowment to lay 
eggs in water, sand, or elsewhere, leaving them for time 
and sunshine to hatch them. This being all that their 
young require, the parental instinct stops there. Others 
lay eggs and sit upon them for several weary weeks to hatch 
them, and then feed and brood and protect the chicks until 
grown. This beautiful trait of character, parental love, is 
not manifested in proportion to the intelligence or gentle- 



Adhesiveness. 99 

ADHESIVENESS. 
(friendship). 

This is the gregarious instinct, and the tendency to 
attachment which is expressed by the term ; it aids in 
the formation of society, and is the source from whence 
arises the particular friendships found there. "When 
well developed, it constitutes what is called " an affec- 
tionate disposition," and causes children to nestle in 
their mother's lap, ox sit down and lay their little heads 
together. 

It is a mental attraction of cohesion which causes 
human beings to cling together and form themselves 
into compact bodies, acting only upon such individuals 
as are brought into sufficiently close contact by similar- 
ity of constitution and circumstances as to fall within 
its sphere. Its first and closest bond is family union, 
the love of brothers and sisters, and all who are in 



ness of disposition in the animal. The tiger, the hyena, 
the wildcat, the wolf, the venomous serpent, with all their 
fierceness and cruelty, are quite as assiduous in their lov- 
ing, parental tenderness, as are the rabbit, deer, or dove, 
which are mainly devoid of courage and cruelty. 

The love of young bears no proportion to the develop- 
ment of the moral and intellectual powers in the human 
race. The " Cotter " as his children gather in of a '' Satur- 
day night," has as deep a fondness for them as it is possi- 
ble for a prince to exhibit. Indeed the Carib flat-head, 
Indian cannibals, belonging to the lowest type of human 
beings so far ais moral and mental power is concerned, and 
cruel and fierce in the last degree, are models of parental 
love. They defend their children with their life, and 
mourn immoderately if they die. 



100 



The Education of the Feelings, 



close lioiiseliold compaiiionsliip, gradually extending to 
school-fellowSj neighbors, and more distant acquaint- 
ances. It is a disposition always seeking to be near its 
object, mentally as well as corporeally ; making the in- 
fant restless when removed from its nurse, and the 
school-girl hurt if her daily correspondent does not tell 
her every thought and purpose. The habits of the 
mind are as infectious as those of the body, and the 
choice of our associates becomes highly influential upon 
our own disposition. " Tell me a man's companions, 
and I will tell you what he is." 

Children necessarily attach themselves strongly at first 
to those who minister most to their comfort and grati- 
fication (pity that parents should so often resign this 
advantage into other and ill-qnalified hands !) ; but, as 
they become older, and better able to look beyond self, 
they may be led to value most as friends those who are 
most deserving of esteem ; and even in young children 
it is delightful sometimes to witness the generous pride 
that is taken in the good qualities and dispositions of 
their little companions. Unless the young be led thus 
to discriminate, they will naturally, nnder the guidance 
of this propensity, make choice of such persons for 
friends who have greater number of feelings in com- 
mon with themselves, or who most gratify their own 
feelings. Thus they may attach themselves to those 
who gratify their pride, or vanity, or appetite; their 
prodigality or senseless prejudices. When this bond 
of union is dissolved, and these feelings are no longer 
indulged, the attachment is alienated — for it is on the 
basis of the moral sentiments only that friendship can 
be permanent — bnt the ill effects remain. 




ANNA C. M. RITCHIE. 
ADHESIVENESS. 

PLATE XIV. 



i 



Adhesiveness, 101 

And yet tlie feeling may, by judicious management, 
be so directed and regulated in the young as to render 
it impossible that they should, at any period of life, 
exercise it upon an unworthy object. 

Under such regulation nothing can be more amiable 
than the manifestation of a warm, affectionate disposi- 
tion, although the want of it in early childhood need 
not, perhaps, be the source of much anxiety. A great 
difference is observable in children as to the proportion 
of this feeling in their constitutions. One child seems 
as if he could not be happy for a moment without his 
accustomed companions ; if he goes to play, they must 
go too ; if he learns, he will do it best when they learn 
with him. I have known one twin brother commit the 
same trivial fault for which the other was suffering 
punishment, that he might share the penalty with him. 
Another child will pursue his studies and his sports 
alone, seemingly quite contented and happy without 
the sympathy of others. Some children, especially 
boys, will always repel caresses, and for many years 
wound the heart of mother and friends by an utter in- 
difference to their affection. And yet, if the mind be 
well constituted in other respects, and the child happily 
circumstanced, better-founded affection will spring up 
and supply the vacuum felt in childhood. A son's love 
for his mother often grows out of the respect which an 
insight into her mind and appreciation of her character 
produce : consequently it is a love deeper in its nature 
and more capable of growth than the innate, halt 
animal affection which Adhesiveness generates. Hence 
this love is often far stronger in the man than in the 
boy. 



102 The Education of the Feelings, 

The expression of a child's affection should be met 
by an affectionate manner in return, but merit should 
never be attached to its display. When the feeling 
seems less strong than it ought to be, it should be 
strengthened and cultivated by the only efficacious 
mode — kindness. • Its outward expression even should 
be encouraged, as having a tendency to exercise the 
feeling. This outward expression, however, should 
never be commanded, neither should it be stimulated, 
as we have said, by praise, as these modes of exciting 
its manifestation would be liable to lead to insincerity, 
and render love itself false. 

In the present state of society this selfish feeling too 
frequently takes the place and credit of benevolence. 
A man who, following the dictates of this propensity, 
is kind to and serves his immediate friends and con- 
nections, conceives that he is acting under the influence 
of the higher moral sentiment, and the world counte- 
nances him generally in the idea ; but a much higher 
benevolence than this is necessary to the happiness of 
mankind, or even to distinguish man from the brutes ; 
to whom also this feeling of particular attachment be- 
longs.*^ 

* To show that disinterested Benevolence is a higher 
trait than Adhesiveness, we only need to remember that 
the latter has to do with special friends and associates, 
and in its widest degree, the circle of our acquaintances; 
while the former not only embraces friends and intensifies 
our regard for them, but takes in, not only the whole 
human race, but all sentient beings. 

We once examined a man in whom Adhesiveness was 
predominant. He was very religious, yet when his love of 
friends was pointed out and described, he said with tearful 
earnestness, " I sometimes think I would not care to go to 



GonscienUousness, 103 

THE MOEAL FEELINGS. 

All the faculties we have described have for their 
object the preservation of the individual. They are 
instinctive impulses aiding the intellect to do that 
which is necessary to our existence and preservation. 
We possess them in common with the brute creation ; 
although they are the substratum, upon which every 
higher order of faculty, everything that peculiarly dis- 
tinguishes man as man, is built ; and it is evident that we 
must first take care of ourselves before we can take care 
of other people. No other person really could take 
care of us, if the instinctive promptings of these facul- 
ties did not induce us to do what was necessary for our 
own well-being. If, as Jeremy Bentham observes, 
Adam had cared more for Eve than he did for himself, 
and Eve more for Adam than for herself, the devil 
might have saved himself the trouble of the temptation, 
for the race would soon have come to an end. The 
social affections have still self for their center, the 
warmth and glow they excite being exclusively for our 
own family, our own friends. We are members, how- 
ever, of a larger family ; we belong to mankind — to 
society ; and the purpose of the moral feelings is to en- 
large our sphere of affection, to widen our embrace, 
and lead us to do that which is right and kind to aU. 



CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 

It is the office of this feeling to permit and sanction 
the action of each of the faculties so far as is consistent 



heaven if I could not see and recognize my friends there, 
because without them it would not be heaven to me." 



lOi Tlie Education of the Feelings. 

with justice, and with the rights of others. It is the 
source of the moral sense, or the sense of duty; its 
workings are conspicuous in straightforward upright- 
ness of conduct, the nice sense of justice, the love of 
truth, delicacy of manners and sentiments, and that 
general sincerity and openness of character, which pro- 
duce at once the conviction that its possessor is an hon- 
est man. 

It manifests itself very early in some children, and 
often very powerfully. The deep blush, the look of 
anguish and apprehension whicli frequently accompany 
even the slightest dereliction from duty on the part of 
a child, testify that the moral principle within has al- 
ready begun its work of checking every tendency to 
vice. It has been observed that " no f anlt is trifling in 
a child." We may all know by experience that no fault 
is trifling to a child. The first little sins which children 
commit appear to them as great in magnitude as the 
most outrageous crimes that disturb society ; and their 
feeling of angnish in consequence of them is often far 
more intense than that experienced by the most notori- 
ous criminals. If, then, these little sins are treated with 
indifference, and regarded according to the mischief 
done by them, and not according to the relation which 
they bear to the character, a blow is given to the con- 
science which may blunt and deaden it irreparably. 
Great crimes are execrated and punished, although 
merely resulting from the same principle, acting in the 
same manner, which was unnoticed in childhood, be- 
cause then minute in its consequences. A child's con- 
science tells him that he is much more guilty when he 
steals a gooseberry out of the garden against positive 




Hon. SOLOMON FOOTE. 

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 

PLATE XV 



Conscientiousness, 105 

orders, and eats it hastily for fear of being seen, than 
when, in the glee of his enthusiasm, he tries his new 
carpenter's tools upon the mahogany table in the draw- 
ing-room. We honor the mother who feels truly most 
concern for the first ofiense. The rebuke, appealing to 
the reason only for the damage to the table, should be 
very different to the sorrowing remonstrance, and per- 
haps punishment, for the theft. The tone of correction 
should always chime in with the voice of conscience. 

The moral sense is not active so early in some chil- 
dren as in others, and we must especially guard against 
making matters of conscience of very trifling things. 
With some parents so many things are wrong, accord- 
ing to the temper they are themselves in, or according 
to the caprice of the moment, and "naughty" is a 
word so often repeated, that a child's conscience is with- 
out a guide, and becomes completely bewildered. We 
must be careful not to call a thing wrong at one time 
and not at another ; a child will soon detect our incon- 
sistency. Unless we ourselves have a clear conscience — 
that is, clear and definite ideas of right and wrong — 
and unless our principles are consistent, certain, unwav- 
ering and undeviating, it is impossible that we can 
properly guide the conscience of a child. That of which 
we ourselves have any doubt, let us never make a ques- 
tion of conscience with a child. Let us avoid making 
too many direct appeals to the conscience, for that which 
a child does that is wrong is not often of much conse- 
quence ; but when he does wrong knowing it to be so, 
that is of consequence. 

In such a case the sense of guilt should never be suf- 
fered to wear away by time in a child's mind, no acknowl- 



106 The Education of the Feelings, 

edgment of it nor reparation having been made. Fene- 
lon says : " Never tell a child of a fanlt without at the 
same time suggesting some mode of redressing it, 
which will induce him to put it into practice ; for noth- 
ing is more to be avoided than that chagrin and dis- 
couragement which are the consequence of mere formal 
correction." Above all, a child should never be suf- 
fered to go to sleep upon an evil conscience. All 
offenses must be repaired and forgiven, and the soul at 
peace with itself before the eyelids close for the night. 
The regular habit of effacing from the mind every 
stain that may be incurred, by genuine penitence and 
heartfelt intention of amendment, has an influence 
which can scarcely be attained by any other means. If 
the conscience of the child be in itself susceptible, the 
confession will be voluntary ; it will be felt a relief 
from the anguish of self-reproach, and then the happy 
task of the mother will be to soothe and encourage — 
not, be it observed, to flatter by praise of the virtuous 
feeling of sorrow, and thus obstruct the healthy effect 
by turning back its current upon itself, but by showing 
how the salutary pain may lead to blessed results here- 
after. If, on the contrary, the sentiment of duty in a 
child be weak or deficient, it will be the mother's part 
to lead it on by gentle questioning till the fault com- 
mitted is brought again clearly before the mind, and 
being shown iil its true colors now that the excitement 
of passion is passed, it will awaken the consciousness of 
wrong that was before unfelt. 

The least conscious fault should be acknowledged, 
and a painful impression should ever be associated with 
it. But here we must observe that nothing tends so 



ConsGientiousness, 107 

completely, ntterly, to destroy the moral sense as undue 
severity ; let the pain of having done wrong be felt as 
sufficient punishment, if no other were to follow. For 
children of a more advanced age all outward punish- 
ment may be positively injurious. When the power of 
conscience is strong, the feelings deep, and the disposi- 
tion retiring, often the less notice that is taken of a 
fault the better. In such a child the sense of demerit 
will be far stronger and the repentance more sincere, if 
he is treated with the same kindness and confidence as 
before, than if the fault be dragged into public view 
and he himself is treated as a criminal ; for in that case 
the wound given to the feelings may be too deep, and 
good resolves may be turned in a contrary direction. 

Conscientiousness is a main element of gratitude, so 
far as the sentiment consists in the desire to return an 
equivalent for the benefit received. It may be very 
early cultivated in the nursery by requiring from chil- 
dren an uniform courteous acknowledgment of the 
services of servants, and a return of kindness by every 
means in their power. 

If an individual possess much Conscientiousness and 
Cautiousness and little Firmness in his character, he 
will be painfully susceptible as to the consequences of 
his actions, and unable to decide upon them without 
great hesitation and difficulty ; a highly cultivated in- 
tellect can then alone prevent the conscience from be- 
coming over-scrupulous and sickly. It is true that 
the world does not sufier much from over-tender con- 
sciences ; but some good may be left undone through 
an excessive fear of doing wrong, and hence this state 
of mind becomes a positive evil. 



108 The Education of the Feelings. 

But the world does suffer very mucli from misdi- 
rected consciences. The office of the feeling, as stated 
before, is to permit the action of each faculty only so 
far as is consistent with justice. Kight is that which 
conduces to the greatest utility, and which, all things 
considered^ produces most happiness ; and wrong is that 
which produces unnecessary pain. But such a rule for 
calculating -what is right, although very well for moral- 
ists to establish principles upon, and to decide between 
the conflicting claims of the morality of different 
nations and of the customs of society, is evidently be- 
yond the reach of children ; they must be taught to 
have faith in the dictum of their parents. This is 
right — ^that is wrong— must be sufficient for them. 
When an action is to be performed, it will never do to 
calculate consequences; then all consequences to our- 
selves and others must be left out of consideration in 
obedience to calculations previously dispassionately 
made, and to what we have otherwise been taught to 
believe is right. The first and the last question must 
always be, What is right ? and it is the principal object 
of a good education to enable us at once to answer the 
question ; for to doubt, when the feelings are engaged, 
is too frequently to be lost. Yirtue, before it can be 
depended upon, must become a haMt of doing what is 
rights instinctively, automatically, at once, and without 
calculation. Not to tell anything but the truth is al- 
ways right; and in this instance, as in thousands of 
others equally clear, children should never be allowed 
to hesitate for a moment, or to think about saving 
themselves, or saving others, by telling what is falsQ. 



Conscientiousness. 109 

The principle of truth is more valuable than the good 
of any individual. 

If the natural development of the moral sense be 
deficient, besides employing every means to strengthen 
it directly, we must endeavor to aid and support it by a 
strenuous cultivation of the religious principle. We 
must always bear in mind, however, in our educational 
treatment, that each faculty, or rather class of faculties, 
must be appealed to separately. It is a common error 
to suppose that in exercising the religious feelings, we 
necessarily cultivate the moral sense, for it is quite cer- 
tain that the former may exist in considerable propor- 
tion in a character with a very imperfect development 
of the latter. Hence we sometimes find piety and zeal 
in the exercises of religion, accompanied by indifference 
as to the discharge of other and important moral duties. 

While health and peace of mind reward obedience 
to the dictates of this faculty, the sense of guilt, re- 
pentance, and remorse, are the pains which punish 
opposition to them. It is needless, surely, to say that 
these latter feelings are not virtuous in themselves, and 
that they are good only in so far as they lead to amend- 
ment. The mind should never be permitted to dwell 
in a sense of demerit, but the feeling of having done 
wrong should be invariably associated with the endeav- 
or to repair it, and the determination to amend the 
faulty disposition which induced, it. The pains of 
wounded conscience, the severest man can know, are 
only attached to evil for the purpose of its cure. 

The feeling which we are considering is the most 
important of aU, because it regulates the proper action 



110 The Education of the Feelings, 

of all the others, by confining them within the bounds 
of what is right. It makes ns desire " to do to others 
as we would they should do to us," and to love truth 
and sincerity above all things. It is painfully evident 
to all who think upon the subject, how much the 
world needs the proper cultivation, exercise, and direc- 
tion of this faculty. It is disheartening to contemplate 
the vast area which " Vanity Fair " occupies, in which 
each acts a part, each wears a mask, each endeavors to 
deceive his neighbor by passing for something more or 
less than he is, and each is satisfied with mere seeming, 
without being or doing. Love of approbation is the 
prime mover ; the craving for distinction^ not excel- 
lence — to apjpea/p^ not to he. Praise is the grand de- 
sideratum, and as to he virtuous is often too difficult or 
too troublesome, the semblance is assumed of whatever 
will best secure the approbation of society. The large 
development of Conscientiousness can alone counteract 
this wide-spreading and infectious tendency. We must 
strengthen the love of truth, of sincerity, of candor, 
in our children, and begin early to make them feel 
heartily ashamed of taking credit which is not strictly 
their due. Never neglect an opportunity of showing 
how mean, how dishonest it is. But how can the love of 
truth be best implanted, and the dishonesty of society 
counteracted ? First, with reference to speaking the 
truth. The truth is not merely a literal representation, 
it is that which does not deceive. Pn early childhood 
it is much more easy to teach a child not to deceive 
than to tell the truth. A child in trying its new and 
first acquisition, its faculty of speech, says so much 
with no other purpose than the pleasure of talking; 



ConscienUousness, 111 

mixes so much nonsense and pure imagination with 
the truth that it is vain to attempt to discriminate be- 
tween fiction and falsehood, and as useless as vain. 
We must be very careful, therefore, how we accuse 
children of falsehood ; we ' must be content to wait till 
they can themselves discriminate between one and the 
other, and, in the meantime, when their statements are 
very wide of facts, let us merely say, " Oh, that is non- 
sense, that is only fun." But as soon as we can, as 
soon as the proper age will permit, let us train a child 
on all occasions scrupulously to tell the literal truth, 
and teach him how to do it. This species of teaching 
is one of the best exercises the mind can possibly have. 
Language, although it is too frequently the medium of 
concealing our thoughts, was not, it may be presumed, 
given for that purpose — on the contrary, we should al- 
ways endeavor that our speech should, as near as we 
can make it, correspond exactly to our thoughts and 
feelings. How little is this practiced ; one-half of 
what almost every one says is false: that is, it does not 
correspond to the real state of thought and feeling, but 
it is said rather in obedience to the dictates of kindness 
or politeness, or the desire to please, to show off, and 
to appear clever. How often is the language of grief 
upon the tongue with joy sparkling in the eye, and 
how easy does it seem to compose almost perfect sen- 
tences expressive of condolence, of joy, or sorrow, 
without any real feeling whatever. We must learn to 
value truth above all things, and to do without this in- 
convertible currency of mere words. 

Let us carefully discard the double comparatives and 
superlati ves that now so much disfigure the language of 



112 The Education of the Feelings. 

• 
society, and tolerate no exaggeration whatever. How 

much of that which is false arises from the want of not 
knowing really how to tell the truth, and how much 
from the dishonest wish to make important what we 
have to tell. Accustom children, therefore, to the 
strictest accuracy as to when, where, how, and where- 
fore, and teach them that it is best and most becoming 
to hold their tongues when an event is not of sufficient 
importance in itself to be mentioned, and that when it 
is, th^ object to be arrived at is not a brilliant relation, 
but a faithful, clear, and intelligible one. To give a 
leaning in our speech to the side we prefer is almost as 
bad as direct falsehood, and we should certainly dis- 
courage special pleading, and, as far as possible, teach 
children to state fairly both sides of the question. Be 
especially careful that servants do not teach children 
deceit by inducing them to keep secret what they see 
and hear in the nursery. Always help a child to tell 
the truth ; for a willful lie, when detected, must be 
treated as the most heinous of offenses — as the meanest, 
the vilest, the greatest, the one never to be overlooked 
or disposed of without punishment. 

But we must be as careful not to act a lie, as not to 
tell one. It will be impossible to teach truth and 
candor to children unless we are truthful and candid 
ourselves. We must avoid all kinds of double-deal- 
ings, double-meanings, reservation ; we must never ex- 
press pleasure at seeing a person, and the reverse be- 
hind his back. We must never join in uncharitable 
opinions of our neighbors. If we are accused we must 
meet the spirit of the accusation, and not hide behind 
some little flaw in the indictment ; we must not show 



Conscientiousness. 113 

some little immaterial circumstance to be untrue, and 
on that account retort upon our accuser, as if the whole 
charge were false. If we argue, we must not, as is too 
frequently the case, set up some scarecrow, some dum- 
my of our own, and having shown its unreality, triumph 
in consequence over our adversary. Above all, we 
must not deceive by telling the truth ; this is the worst 
lie of all — it is betraying with a kiss. We must never 
promise what we can not or do not intend to perform. 
We must always keep our promise, whether for reward 
or punishment. We know how difficult it is on all oc- 
casions to decide upon the claims of truth, and to judge 
in what way and how far such claims can be best sup- 
ported. It is true that much discretion must be used 
in supporting what we believe to be the truth, and as 
so much of error mixes with all subjects, allowance 
must be made for this, and due modesty used in ex- 
pression ; even if we know what is the truth, it is still 
not to be spoken at all times, but yet on no occasion 
must we say what is not true or countenance any kind 
of deception. But Conscientiousness requires honesty 
as well as truth ; dishonesty may be said to be an acted 
lie. We have got so far in a moral code as an acknowl- 
edgment from the world that "honesty is the best 
policy ;" but the world is slow to act even upon this 
tardy admission, and it generally gives to its honesty a 
most limited interpretation. Honesty is not merely 
the negative of robbing and stealing, but the giving to 
every man strictly his due. We must not rob others 
of their time, by want of punctuality in keeping our 
appointments, or by suffering them to call again and 
again at our door, when we might have attended to 



il4 Tlie Education of the Feelings. 

them at once. We must admit every claim that we 
know to be just, whether in relation to property, char- 
acter, or intelligence. We must not detract from an- 
other's merit, and steal, or even withhold, his praise. 
We must give a candid and fair examination to views 
opposite to our own, before we allow ourselves to speak 
decidedly upon them. And above all, in measuring 
out what is due to others, we must never be influenced 
by what others may do to us, by their opinion of us or 
their conduct toward us. We are to do as we would 
be done by, not as we are done by ; and if others do 
wrong, it is an additional reason why we should more 
carefully endeavor to do what is right. In thus regu- 
lating our own conduct, we are using the most direct 
means of cultivating the principle of right in our chil- 
dren. All rules and methods are at best but small ad- 
juncts to the teachings by example, and without that 
example worse than vain. 

It is impossible to say too much against the universal 
spirit of detraction, which so extensively prevails at 
present, that it may be said almost to be the spirit of 
the age. Kumor is never to be trusted — common ru- 
mor is a common liar. No statements, however gross, 
monstrous, false, and improbable, can be invented 
against an individual, that are not instantly caught up, 
circulated, and by the great majority believed without 
investigation or evidence. That such things should be 
stated is, ordinarily, enough to insure almost universal 
credit ; even the judicious and charitable few, often 
presuming, without further evidence than '^ hearsay," 
that there must be something in such accusations ; they 
can not be altogether invented ; there is never smoko 



Conscientiousness. 115 

but there is fire, etc. Even those who have been the 
victims of this lying tendency are as ready and even 
more ready to fall in with it. It is gratifying to bad 
people to think that others are as bad as themselves ; 
and in society generally people feel that the easiest way 
to raise themselves is to pull others down. 

There is another untruthful tendency against which 
we are called upon to be on oui* guard, equally general^ 
although not equally mean and low in its origin, and 
which is as prevalent now as it was two thousand or 
three thousand years ago. Mr. Grote, in his History of 
Greece, says: "Where there is any general body of 
sentiments pervading men living in society, whether it 
be religious or political — ^love, admiration, or antipathy 
— all incidents tending to illustrate that sentiment are 
eagerly believed, rapidly circulated, and (as a general 
rule) easily accredited. If real incidents are not at 
hand, impressive fiction will be provided to satisfy the 
demand : the perfect harmony of such fictions with the 
prevalent feeling stands in the place of certifying tes- 
timony, and causes men to hear them, not merely with 
credence, but even with delight ; to call them in ques- 
tion and require proof, is a task which can not be under- 
taken without incurring obloquy." Every conscientious 
person, however, must be thoroughly prepared to meet 
such obloquy, and he can not be too skeptical with re- 
spect to views and statements thus smoothly and rapidly 
carried along on the broad current of public opinion. 
It is astonishing when once a statement is put forth as 
a fact which is in accordance with public sentiment, 
how a thousand apparently confirmatory facts spring 
up at once, not one of which has the least foundation 



116 The Education of the Peelings. 

in truth. The unscrupulousiiess of the uneducated 
classes, generally speaking, is almost beyond belief, and 
is only equaled by their credulitj?-; and both are in 
proportion to their ignorance. In fact, such is the 
lying spirit abroad, such the tendency to detract, to ex- 
aggerate, and to embellish, that we are not justified in 
believing anything to another's prejudice upon mere 
/'hearsay," and one thing is most certain, that whether 
we believe such rumors or not (and sometimes it is out 
of our power to disbelieve), we never ought to allow 
this belief to prejudice the accused as regards our 
actions, without first hearing his side of the question. 
We shall too often find that the accusation has no foun- 
dation whatever ; and if it is true, there are frequently 
extenuating circumstances which will always be taken 
into account by every just person, who tries to believe 
the best he possibly can of his neighbors and wishes to 
do only as he would be done by."^ 



* On no faculty of the mental constitution has there been 
more contrariety of opinion than on that of conscience. 
Several writers on ethics deny the existence of a moral 
faculty. One explains conscience on the basis of *'fear;" 
another on the *' love of praise; " another on * sympathy; " 
another on *-the fitness of things;" another on *' imita- 
tion." Others recognize it as a special faculty of the hu- 
man soul. Phrenology settles this question by the study 
of the brain development; and undertakes, even in a dark 
room, to point out the man to whom right motives and the 
desire for the right for its own sake, is superior to every 
other consideration. We once found a man of culture and 
talent in whom the organ of Conscientiousness showed a 
marked deficiency. We advised him to cultivate it, and 
be careful to think of the question of right or wrong in all 



I 



Benevotencd. Il7 

BENEVOLENCE. 

The object or final cause of Creation seems to be the 
happiness of created intelligences. The wisdom of the 
Creator is evidenced in the design displayed in the uni- 
verse. Design means the adaptation of means to a 
particular purpose or end, and we must know what that 
purpose is before we can say that the means used to 
carry it out are adapted to the purpose, that is, before 
we can say that there is wisdom displayed in the ar- 
rangement. We must make up our minds, therefore, 
upon the objects of creation before we can say that 
wisdom is displayed in them. If it be denied that the 
final cause of creation is happiness, we ask what other 
object can there be ? It is said, " the glory of God ; " 
bnt a world without consciousness, or with a miserable 
consciousness, would be no glory to God. It is also 
said the object of creation is " action," and the " de- 
velopment of mind ; " but mere action could as well 
exist in a world devoid of all spirit or consciousness, 
and we can not conceive of any use in increased de- 
velopment of mind, unless it led to increased happiness. 
If it led to misery, such increased development of mind 
would be worse than useless ; if to indifference, it would 
be the same as a mere increased development of matter. 

Thought is said to be " higher far than happiness," 
but thought that does not lead to the increase of hap- 



his conduct. He replied, ''I never did wrong in my life." 
We replied that if he had Conscientiousness large he would 
never utter such a remark, although in such a case his 
general conduct would be much more likely to be correct 
than at present with the deficiency of conscience. 



118 The Education of the E^eelings, 

piness is worse than uselessly employed. The object 
of thought is to direct and guide all our faculties to- 
ward their legitimate gratification, and that legitimate 
gratification it is that constitutes happiness. It is be- 
lieved that happiness is allied to pleasure, and that 
pleasure is only derived from the exercise of the lower 
or animal propensities, but the shortest and most cor- 
rect definition of happiness is, that it consists of the 
sum or aggregate of pleasurable sensation from what- 
ever source derived. The happiness derived from the 
lower feelings is perhaps more intense than that derived 
from the higher, but it is more fleeting, and more mixed 
with pains. Every joy has its shadow, intense in pro- 
portion to its solidity, and such appears to be the 
necessary law of human nature, that whatever increases 
our capacity for joy, increases also our capacity for sor- 
row. There are those who deny that there is any hap- 
piness here, and that it is only in the higher pursuits of 
another world that we can look for it ; but in the pur- 
suit of truth, love, and beauty, is there no happiness 
here? and can any one say what is higher? Tes, to 
erring creatures, the path of duty is higher. But is 
not the path of duty the path of the highest happiness ? 
To a highly organized human being there is no happi- 
ness out of it, only deep sorrow and remorse ; and the 
very pains of the path of duty are joys, so much does 
the higher nature transcend the lower. A Eegulus had 
infinitely more joy than Nero, although his higher at- 
tributes ultimately led to his confinement in the barrel 
pierced with spikes. Sorrow and sadness are often only 
the shortest road to the greatest gladness, and in the 
regions of faith and hope, through which that path leads, 



I 




C. C. TRACY. 
BENEVOLENCE. 



PLATE XVI. 



I 




Benevolence. 119 

will be found ^' the peace of God which passeth all un- 
derstanding/' which is the highest and most enduring 
happiness of all. Religion is not unsatisfied yearning 
and aspiration, but action in the path of that duty for 
which we were created, and trust in God for the final 
accomplishment of all which our highest yearning and 
aspiration can not reach. 

It appears to us, then, that the existence of God is 
proved by the evidence of design — that is, that Nature, 
in carrying out her endless purposes, is working toward 
a particular object, and that that object is happiness. 
" That God willed the happiness of His creatures, is 
indisputable ; and He has made it impossible that they 
should not endeavor to obtain it. To this end He has 
given them every faculty they possess.^ Here is evi- 
dence of the benevolent intentions of our Creator, and 
the means He adopts to carry out His intention indicate 
a power and wisdom far surpassing our comprehension. 
What more is requisite for a rational faith ? God wills 
the happiness of His creatures, and He has power and 
wisdom to accomplish His wishes. May we not, there- 
fore, safely trust in Him ; may we not safely leave our 
fate, where, beyond our own control, whether it relates 
to coming into this world or going into another, in His 
hands ? Happiness we believe to be " our being's end 
and aim," and it is the faculty of Benevolence which 
places us in harmony with this principal object in crea- 
tion, and which makes us desire the happiness of others, 
and gives us a lively sympathy with the enjoyment of 
all created beings. In this, at least, it is our privilege 



* Bentham. 



120 The Education of the Feelings, 

to be made in the likeness of God ; and as an humble 
instrument in aiding Him in producing happiness, and 
in our sympathy with it will be found our own highest 
enjoyment. This feeling has received various names : 
it is called love of mankind, goodness of heart, good 
nature, etc. ; and joined to Conscientiousness, it consti- 
tutes that charity so beautifully described by St. Paul 
in the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians. As its object 
is to produce happiness in others, so whenever the feel- 
ing is strong in any mind, it produces happiness to 
its possessor, diffusing a genial warmth and sunshine 
through the mind, which all the frosts and clouds of life 
can not dispel ; and as it is so powerful a diffuser of 
happiness, it is most important that we should attend 
to its early cultivation. 

Each propensity, sentiment, and intellectual faculty 
should be put under the guidance of this desire for uni- 
versal good; and let us not mistake the love which 
proceeds from Adhesiveness, which might more properly 
be called affection, for this feeling ; the one relates only 
to individuals, the other regards the whole human race, 
or rather the whole sensitive creation. 

Education, if rightly understood, is that mode of treat- 
ment which will teach an individual to feel, to think, and 
to act, so as to produce most happiness to himself and 
others. He must not only lc>now how^ but he must also 
be disposed to act. ITow the disposition to act for our 
own good is already strong enough, as all the propensi- 
ties tend to that end ; but the disposition to act for the 
good of others depends very much upon the feeling of 
Benevolence. 

As an instinct, it is held by some to be possessed, in 



Benevolence, 121 

a degree, by many of the inferior animals ; however 
this may be, its manifestations in man are often simply 
instinctive. It then forms the character of the good- 
natured man, who is impelled by it to gratify the wishes 
of everybody aronnd him, if it be in his power, even 
at the expense of their future good. He can not say 
" No," and he therefore yields to the importunities of 
the idle and dissolute that which perhaps is due in jus- 
tice to claims which are, at the moment, out of sight. 
He spoils his children ; yielding to their entreaties, he 
gives what he knows to be improper for them, because, 
" bless their little hearts,'' he can not bear to hear them 
cry. If he threatens, he can not find strength of char- 
acter to perform ; if he does punish them, he tries to 
make amends for it, and to conciliate them by lavishing 
upon them extraordinary gratifications and luxuries. 
To diffuse immediate happiness upon those near at 
hand, without reference to future and more permanent 
good, is the short-sighted object of the uncultivated 
feeling of Benevolence. 

When cultivated, but with a wrong direction, its op- 
eration is still of the same Idnd, but more mischievous 
as it is exerted through a wider sphere. Many of the 
wide-spread charities of the present day furnish exam- 
ples of this. They seek to remedy a present evil, to 
relieve a present suffering, by means which multiply 
for the future these pains and sufferings many fold. A 
late writer on the principles of Charitable Institutions 
remarks, that they are more numerous, that more exer- 
tions are made for the relief of the poor now than at 
any former period, yet poverty and crime are on the 
increase. What is the reason of this ? The writer al- 
6 



122 The EduoaUon of the Feelings. 

luded to goes on to prove that it is to be found in the 
fact, that remedies are often applied without discrimi- 
nating between the different causes which produce these 
evils, and therefore perpetuate and increase them, or at 
best only palliate them. But the real cause of this want 
of discrimination and consequent failure is the fact that 
it is not real benevolence at work, but a something be- 
tween the seeming of love of approbation and a bargain 
to get as cheaply as possible to heaven. People wish 
to stand well in the opinion of their neighbors, and 
they have likewise heard that " he that giveth to the 
poor, lendeth to the Lord," and they approve of the 
security and invest a small sum, but never more than 
they can conveniently spare ; to do more would be im- 
prudence ! They do their charities, that is, give annual 
guineas, the press generally blowing a trumpet before 
them ; but they neither watch the spending of the money 
nor care much what becomes of it — consequently, the 
more remote the sphere of operation — ^if to build a 
Church at Jerusalem for converted Jews, or to make 
Christians of Caribs — the more liberal the donation. 
Children should be early taught to distinguish between 
seeming and real benevolence — between generosity that 
costs nothing, that is, involves no self-sacrifice or even 
self-denial, and that which proceeds from love and 
duty. When the higher classes are really in earnest 
about raising the condition of the lower — when they 
cease to consider them as mere objects to perform their 
charities upon, as convenient stepping-stones to heaven, 
as so much raw material out of which they are to work 
their own salvation, as the poor ^ " whom we are always 
to have with us," and therefore are to be kept poor, 



Benevolence, 123 

or at least in their present position as lower orders — 
then there will be less difficulty in removing the arti- 
ficial and ultimately the natural barriers to their success. 
A little well-directed effort to do good is better than a 
large and expensive beneficence on a wrong principle. 

That which is commonly called charity, the succoring 
and aiding of distress, is but a limited exercise of be- 
nevolence ; but that which Paul denominates charity is 
the true, divine Spirit of Love — " Though I should give 
all my goods to feed the poor, and have not charity, I 
am nothing/' — that charity which "loveth all things" 
and which strives to add to the enjoyment of every 
living creature within its reach. 

If a child be introduced to the instances of benevo- 
lent design throughout the universe, he can not but 
perceive that the purpose of its Creator is the produc- 
tion of the largest possible sum of enjoyment, that the 
apparent exceptions to this must arise from our limited 
knowledge, and that earth, air, and sea are full of innu- 
merable creatures all practically praising their Maker, 
by their sense of this enjoyment that He has given 
them ; and a child's natural sympathy with what is 
good and beautiful will soon excite the desire to use his 
own little powers to the furtherance of the same object. 
The desire will grow with its indulgence, and with the 
development of these powers, until he will have no idea 
of happiness except as associated with the happiness of 
others. Thus, if we wish to create in our child a liberal 
spirit, extended sympathies, a loving disposition, " iden- 
tify him," says Eichter, " with the life of others, and 
give him a reverence for life under every form : teach 
liim to consider all animal life as sacred 



12i The Education of the Feelings. 

"You may teach a higher than Ovid's Art of Love, 
by requesting your child to do something without com- 
manding or rewarding performance, or punishing neg- 
lect ; only depict beforehand, if it is for another, or 
afterward if for yourself, the pleasure which the little 
actor's attention to your wish affords. You excite the 
Benevolence of children less by pictures of people's ne- 
cessities than of the joy produced by relieving them. 
For the little heart conceals so great a treasure of love, 
that he is less deficient in willingness to make sacrifices 
than in the certainty that they would give pleasure. 
Hence, when children have once begun to mate pres- 
ents they would never cease giving. The parents may 
give the reward of certain happiness by a gladly prais- 
ing approval; an educational lever whose power has 
not been sufficiently estimated. For children accus- 
tomed only to parental bidding and forbidding, are 
made happy by permission to do some extra service, 
and by the recognition of their having done it. This 
affectionate acknowledgment of pleasure renders them 
neither vain nor empty, but full — not proud, but warm. 

" It does the poor man, or dog, or whatever it may 
be, good, or harm ! These few words, said in a proper 
tone of voice, are worth a whole sermon : and fie ! said 
to a girl, will abundantly fill the place of half a volume 
of ' Ehrenberg's Lectures to the Female Sex.' 

" Do not apprehend too great danger to the affections 
from children's quarrels. Their incapacity to place 
themselves in another's position, and their Adam-like 
innocence of belief that the whole world is made for 
them, and not they for the world ; all these things com- 
bine to raise the inflated bubbles which soon break of 



Benevolence. 125 

themselves. They may speak harshly, or even fly into a 
passion with one another, but must not continue it! 
Tou must do many more things to be hated than to be 
loved by children : hated parents must themselves have 
hated for a long time. Advancing years rarely awaken 
a repressed or dormant love ; the individual's own self- 
ishness doubles that of others, and this again . redoubles 
that; and so layer upon layer of ice is frozen. You 
falsify love by commanding its outward expression; 
kissing the hand, for instance. Such things, unlike 
kind actions, are not the causes, but only the effects of 
love. Do not in any instance require love : among 
grown-up persons would a declaration of affection, if 
commanded and prescribed by the highest authorities, 
be well received ? 

^' And finally, ye parents, teach to love, and you will 
need no ten commandments ; teach to love, and a rich 
winning life is opened to your child ; for man (if this 
simile be permitted) resembles Austria, which increases 
its territory by marriage, but loses its acquisitions by 
war ; teach to love, in this age, which is the winter of 
time, and which can more easily conquer everything 
than a heart by a heart ; teach to love, so that when 
your eyes are old, and their sense almost extinguished, 
you may yet find around your rich couch and dying 
bed no greedy covetous looks, but anxious weeping 
eyes, which strive to warm your freezing life, and 
lighten the darkness of your last hour by thanks for 
their first. Teach to love, I repeat ; that means — do 
you love ! ""^ f 

* Levana. 

t Perhaps one of the best methods for the improvement 



126 The EdxLcation of the Feelings. 

THE AESTHETIC FEELINGS. 

By the ^Esthetic is meant the sense of the beautiful 
and subHme, the love of art and poetry, the feeling of 
the spiritual element in all the various forms of art, the 
desire of the soul for the perfect. Ideality is the onlj?^ 
sentiment we have placed under that head, not because 
it is alone essential to the formation of the aesthetic 
character of mind, but because it constitutes its founda- 
tion. 



of the faculty of Benevolence, is for a person to seek out 
some one who is poorer than himself, and take his interests 
in hand with a view to their improvement. He will soon 
find that in doing good there is great recompense of joy. 
If one feels poor and discouraged, let him go through some 
of the streets of a great city which are the abode of the 
very poor, and he will soon learn to be grateful for the 
blessings which crown his own life, and at the same time 
profoundly moved to sympathy in behalf of those whose 
life is a grievous struggle and a burden. The rich who 
have opportunity to enjoy all that study, travel, art, and 
society can bestow, are apt to become selfish and ungrate- 
ful in the midst of plenty ; they fret at the weather or any- 
thing else that may interfere with their search after pleas- 
ure. The greatest blessing some people ever receive, comes 
in the form of disaster to their worldly prosperity, and the 
humbling of the attendant pride and selfishness. It brings 
them to their better selves, to the exercise of their higher 
powers, and they might say with the psalmist, * ' Before I 
was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy word. 
It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might 
learn Thy statutes." 



Ideality. 127 

IDEALITY. 

It is difficult to say what is the primitive function of 
this faculty ; it is easier to say what are its results in 
combination with other faculties — that is, what it leads 
to. Yiewed philosophically, man must not be regarded 
as a mere present individual, but must be looked at in 
his relation to the past, the present, and the future. 
From the past he has received the results of the experi- 
ence of by-gone ages, and, in consequence, is a recipient 
of the benefits of an advanced civilization ; in the pres- 
ent he is called upon to perform his little part in the 
chain of causation, but in doing this it behooves him not 
to rest satisfied with the material comforts and pleas- 
ures which past generations have prepared for him, but 
to do also his part toward promoting the interests of 
the future ; he is bound to leave the generation which 
is to follow him benefited by his existence, as he has 
been benefited by the one preceding him. That he 
may do this, it is essential that he should not rest satis- 
fied with the perfection that breathes around him, but 
that he should always aspire to something higher and 
better, and aim to give it being. 

Ideality gives the desire to do this, and upon this 
feeling is based the progressive character of man's exist- 
ence, and the perfectibility of his nature. ISTature 
seems to aim here at the perfection of the race, not of 
individual man. So far as we regard man as the in- 
habitant of this earth, he is the temporary receptacle of 
high spiritual attributes — of mental manifestations. 
The individual passes away, but Youth and Beauty and 
Delight are immortal ; as the poet says, '' For them 



128 



TliG Education of the Feeliiigs. 



there is no deatli nor change." Through a series of 
generations mind is developed, great principles are 
worked out, and become more strongly marked — truth 
and goodness and holiness and beauty have a larger and 
stronger and more forcible existence, although the ma- 
terial organization by which this development has 
been effected has passed away like the leaves in au- 
tumn. Ideality, then, is the desire for, and the con- 
sequent striving after, an ideal perfection — that is, a 
perfection greater than we find existing ; it is a dis- 
satisfaction with the present and the actual, and the 
yearning after a future state in which everything will 
be perfect. The mode in which this feeling manifests 
itself, of course, depends upon the other feelings and 
intellectual faculties with which it is allied ; as we have 
said before, it gives rise to the aesthetic part of our nat- 
ure, to poetic feeling, and to the love of the beautiful. 
We have heard those in whom the feeling was strong, 
say that it seemed to give to everything a double exist- 
ence — to that which would otherwise be mere material 
things with material uses, it endows with high and 
spiritual attributes. For instance, to a person without 
this feeling, the Yenus de Medicis would be a mere 
" stone gal," as the rustic called it, while to another 
differently endowed, it would be the ideal or perfection 
of physical beauty. If we examine to ascertain in 
what real poetry consists, we shall find that it is the ad- 
dition of this spiritual attribute of beauty and perfec- 
tion to material existences. Thus poetry is principally 
made by adjectives, characterizing and qualifying and 
idealizing and beautifying the noun. For example : 




FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, 
IDEALITY. 



PUTE ys% 



I 



Ideality. 129 

*' The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 
The cock's shrill clarion^ and the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed." 

And again : 

^'I have bedimmed 
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds. 
And 'twixt the green sea and the azui^e vault 
Set roaring war." 

We know every one has his definition of poetry, and 
every one his own idea of what is poetry. It is said to 
be the language of all the feelings when highly excited, 
that is, when they approach to passion ; but it may be 
said rather to be the language of every feeling when 
under the influence of ideality, its mode of expression 
depending entirely upon the various combinations of the 
intellectual faculties. Ideality is not the same as im- 
agination or fancy, imagination being merely a mode 
of action — a degree of activity of the other faculties ; 
Ideality may excite imagination and fancy, but of itself 
it is a feeling, sentiment, or wish ; a love of perfection 
for its own sake, in the same way as there is also a love 
of knowledge for its own sake. It has always a refin- 
ing tendency, and gives an innate shrinking from all 
that is low and vnlgar and coarse. The beautiful 
everywhere is its food, is that which calls it into ac- 
tivity, and constitutes its enjoyment. God has made 
everything so beautiful here that one abuse of it con- 
sists in looking to another world only for its gratifica- 
tion. 

Ideality gives not only soul to poetry and romance, 
but to the prosaie concerns of every-day life. It may 
6* 



130 . Tlie Education of the Feelings, 

be called an additional sense, and no station in life 
necessarily debars us from its pleasures, wliicli, like 
those of the other senses, ought to be common to all, 
and be cultivated and improved by all. Wherever 
there is Nature, there is beauty — wherever there is 
man, there should be the faculty to admire ; the 
" privileged classes " have secured to themselves many 
of the means of its gratification, but they can not 
monopolize "the glory in the grass, the sunshine on 
the flower." 

In order to cultivate the faculty, it is not necessary 
to fill the mind with the false associations and coloring 
of romance, or to study the models of classical an- 
tiquity ; but to ^' go forth into ligature's school," and 
there it will educate itself, amidst flowers and fields, 
among the hills, and by the river-side. In towns and 
cities the lessons of Nature are more faint and few, but 
even here, her sunbeams gild the tops of the spires, and 
sparkle on the flood which reflects, as it passes by, the 
crowded habitations ; here, too, the taste may be more 
readily nurtured upon the beautiful in art and science. 

'^ Children are often very poetical. ' Are you glad 
that God has made it all so beautiful ? ' said a child to 
me as I was watching the sun sinking into the waves 
at B. The mind of another child of between four and 
flve years old is not less imaginative. During a walk 
on a fine December day, it was delightful to see how 
happy and observing he was, stooping to look at the 
mosses, and to gather specimens of the few remaining 
plants, and talking all the way — ' Look at those rain- 
bows on the hills ! ' cried he, pointing to the difierent 
shades of trees, blended in the mists. He gathered a 



Ideality. 131 

little piece of beautiful moss, and called it his forest ; 
and took up the idea with delight, when it was sug- 
gested, that in that forest all ' the lions and tigers and 
wolves should play with the lambs, and little children 
should lead them.' — ' And the little baby-boys/ he 
added, ' should be nursed by elephants, and the lions 
should put brass upon their claws, for fear of hurting 
the lambs.' He was told that they could make their 
paws soft when they liked — so he carried his jungle 
full of elephants and tigers carefully home, in his little 
cold hand. The first-mentioned of these children, 
when four years old, while walking in the wood at 

, wished to gather some flowers for his mamma, 

who was going away. ' There is no time now,' said 
some one present, ' but you can send her a nosegay in 
a few days.' ' They will hang their heads,' said he, 
' when mamma goes — they will cry — they will all 
wither and waste away ! ' One evening, while watch- 
ing the sunset, he said, ' The sim sinks behind the deep 
hills.' When four years old he would amuse himself 
for hours by drawing lines, and making stories about 
these lines ; for example, ' Here is a steamboat and 
here is a little boat, and it goes wave, wave, wave.' 
But there is no good thing on this earth which may not 
be perverted, by excess, into bad ; his imagination 
often leads him into untruth. When three years old 
he said, so very gravely, that had you only looked at 
his countenance, and not heard his words, you would 
have felt sure he believed the truth of what he was 
speaking. — ' Do you know, just now I saw a pig walk- 
ing along the road with a bonnet on ? ' Every day, about 
this time, the habit of telling falsities of this kind grew 



l32 The Education of the Feeling^, 

upon him. Probably be did not wish to deceive ; the 
images passed through his mind, and he wished to 
communicate them, and knew^ not yet how to do so 
but by saying, ' I saw,' ' There was,' and the like forms 
of expression. How^ever, had he meant to cheat, it is a 
fearful thing to begin with a child upon the subject of 
untruth, and the plan w^e pursued from the beginning 
was not to take the slightest notice of these effusions. 
To laugh at them would have been fatal, to frown on 
them scarcely less so ; therefore there was no other 
course left than to remain deaf to him. Tempted on 
by his imagination, he still tells stories of this kind ; 
but surely these stories are of a very different nature 
from those which are uttered to screen the teller from 
punishment.""^ 

If the taste be nurtured upon the beautiful objects 
and elevated subjects which Nature presents to it, 
there will be no danger of its becoming sickly and dis- 
torted, by being permitted to indulge in the delights of 
fiction. A pure natural taste will repel all that is in- 
congruous, and assimilate nothing but that which is 
pure and simple in itself. 

Ideality is a strong guardian of virtue ; for they who 
have tasted its genuine pleasures can never rest satisfied 
with those of mere sense. But it is possible, however, 
to cultivate the taste to such a degree as to induce a 
fastidious refinement, when it becomes the inlet of 
more pain than pleasure. Nor is the worst of over- 
refinement the loss of selfish gratification ; it is apt to 
interfere with benevolence, to avoid the sight of inele- 



* Monthly Kepository. 



tdeatity. 133 

gant distress, to shrink from the contact of vulgar 
worth, and to lead ns to despise those whose feeling of 
taste is less delicate and correct than our own. If the 
beautiful and the useful be incompatible, the beautiful 
must give way — as the means of the existence and 
comfort of the masses must be provided before the ele- 
gancies which can conduce only to the pleasure of the 
few. Selfishness, though refined, is still but selfishness, 
and refinement ought never to interfere with the means 
of doing good in the world as it at present exists. 

It is not desirable to appeal early to this feeling, or 
perhaps ever directly to cultivate it. If the other fac- 
ulties are well developed and properly cultivated, tliis 
will attain suflScient strength of itself. The beautiful 
is the clothing of the infinite, and in the contemplation 
of the beautiful, and the love of perfection, we seek 
our highest and most intimate communion with God, 
and draw nearer and nearer to Him. 

The fine arts — ^painting, sculpture, music, as well as 
poetry — ought all to minister to Ideality. The proper 
use of painting, for instance, ought to be to represent 
everything that is beautiful in the present, and to recall 
all that is worthy of remembrance in the past. To give 
hodij to those spiritual pictures of ideal beauty and 
perfection which Ideality forms— to give a faithful rep- 
resentation of the great and good that have departed, and 
to put vividly before us those actions and scenes, those 
pages from universal history w^hich have a tendency to 
refine, to exalt, and to enlarge the soul — this is what 
painting ought to aim at. To paint, however perfectly, 
horses being shod, deer being hunted, the agony of 
poor animals in traps, bread and cheese, and lobsters^ 



134 The FA'UGatwn of the Feelings. 

and foaming ale, is but an abuse and a perversion of 
one of the highest gifts and attainments, which a more 
civilized age will repudiate. A pig-stye, however per- 
fectly painted, still but recalls the idea of a pig-stye : 
and if it excites any feeling, it is one of regret that such 
wonderful art should be so misapplied."^ 



THE RELIGIOUS FEELmGS. 

VEJSTERATIOK. 

This feeling originates the disposition to respect and 
revere whatever is great and good and superior to our- 
selves; and whatever we are brought up to consider 
great and good and worthy of honor. According to 
these imbibed notions, it may be directed to rank, titles, 
ancestry, wealth, particular creeds and customs, laws 



* If one will look at any garment or structure, he will be 
astonished to see how much of the work bestowed upon it 
was inspired by the faculty of Ideality. One-half the ma- 
terial and at least two-thirds of the work on a lady's dress, 
are in response to the sense of beauty. Look at the carv- 
ings, the moldings, the fine wood and trimmings which 
enter into the composition of the furniture of a single well- 
fumished room ! Observe the architectural decoration of 
the house inside and out, the moldings, cornices, the pan- 
eling, the mantels, the frescoes, the elegant staircases; and 
then the curtains, carpets and upholstery, and tell us if 
three-fourth s^f all you see would not come under the head 
of decoration. We feel that we can not do without some- 
thing in this line, and realize that 

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." 




VENERATION. 



PLATE XVill 



The Religious Feelvags. 1S5 

and institutions : or it may be attached to those objects, 
persons, and institutions, most worthy from their real 
greatness and goodness to excite respect and reverence. 
Hence its right direction is highly important ; for what- 
ever may be its objects, it is very diJBficnlt in after life 
to break the association between them and the feeling, 
though reason may plainly point out the absurdity of 
the connection, and the small inherent claim to our re- 
spect they may possess. 

The feeling is an important auxiliary in moral train- 
ing. Mr. Combe says : " It is the chief ingredient in 
fihal piety, and produces that soft and almost holy def- 
erence with which a child looks up to its parent, as the 
author of his days, the protector of his infancy, and the 
guide of his youth." It constitutes part of the charm 
of social intercourse, as the source of the honor we pay 
to age, to talent, to virtue ; and it connects us by a 
pleasing chain with all that is or has been great and 
good in the moral and material world. 

In education the feeling has generally been drawn 
upon too largely, as it has been the means of attaching 
undue importance to antiquity and authority, consid- 
ered independently of their real claims to respect ; but 
it must not be undervalued because it has been abused, 
and if it be deficient in a child, it must be cultivated 
by directing his attention to that which is really worthy 
of his reverence ; at the same time showing that we 
also venerate the objects which we would have him 
honor; for the influence of example is particularly 
strong over this faculty. ISTothing is more chilling to 
this feeling than derision and ridicule; that which a 
child hears laughed at by others, he can never respect, 



136 The Eduoation of the Feelings. 

so that it is necessary most carefully to exclude all such 
associations with that which should be held by him in 
esteem and reverence. 

As the love we bear to our fellow-creatures is the 
same sentiment which with a higher direction we enter- 
tain towards our Creator, so this feeling of veneration 
not only originates respect to human superiority, but is 
the source of the disposition to the worship and adora- 
tion which is paid to the Great First Cause. It is ex- 
pressed by the sacred writers in their injunctions to 
" Fear God/' which allude to the exercise of this sen- 
timent of deference or veneration towards Him. Thus 
it constitutes a large proportion of the Religious Feel- 
ings. It is on this subject that most anxiety has been 
felt by parents, and on which the greatest mistakes 
have been committed. The idea that the religious feel- 
ings proceed from supernatural influences only, and the 
consequent neglect of their natural culture, have occa- 
sioned a great want of success in their development 
and guidance. We ask for " daily bread," but we do 
not expect that it will be given without the exercise of 
the means which God has appointed to obtain it. Why 
then, when we pray that His '^ kingdom may come," 
do we not study the natural means appointed no less 
to bring it about, but sit down contented with the idea 
that the "kingdom of God in the heart" is only to be 
established by direct supernatural influence upon it? 
If we examine into the nature of our constitution, we 
shall see that certain feelings are given to us, upon the 
strength of which will depend the sense of religion and 
the disposition to perform religious duties. The most 
direct means to inspire a proper sense of religion, and 



The Religious Feelings. 137 

the meaBS which God himself has pointed out, is the 
strengthening of these feelings. This is the soil from 
whose insufficient cultivation so much of '^the seed" 
which is sown brings forth no fruit. It has been from 
the neglect of these means, of the like natural means 
which we take to procure our ^' daily bread," that the 
spirit of religion so little prevails — that religious teach- 
ings, in general, tend to the spread of fanaticism and 
mere sectarianism, or to leave the mind in indifference. 

Precepts alone, as we have formerly observed, have 
no direct tendency to strengthen the feelings, nor are 
they more effectual to this end in the shape of creeds 
and catechisms. Previous moral training is necessary 
to render religious instructions availing. If the feelings 
to which the hopes and fears of religion are addressed, 
and on which the love and fear of God and the Chris- 
tian virtues depend, be already cultivated, then, and 
only then, will its appeals be really successful. From 
the want of this cultivation, though the cry of religion 
is heard on every side, the world is still in bondage to 
those evils which it seems to have been the special ob- 
ject of Christianity to remove. The grades of society 
are, perhaps, even more marked ; the want, wretchedness, 
and consequent vice of the masses as prevalent, while 
the direct and plain precepts of Christ are disregarded, 
or explained away to suit the low standard of conven- 
tional moral feeling. 

It is sometimes a matter of much difficulty with 
thoughtful parents how to deal judiciously with the 
tender germs of religious perception ; how to strength- 
en, without injuring by false and unworthy association. 
It is a question whether it be safe to present any definite 



138 The Education of the Feelings. 

idea of God to the infant mind — whether the name and 
all that tends to individualize this mightiest conception 
of the mature mind should not be kept back until such 
time as the heart and understanding demand this back- 
ground and solution of the world without and the world 
within. That God is, is the one fixed idea which sus- 
tains our humanity — the dorsal column to which, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, are firmly knit the hopes and 
fears, sense of security, faith in results, which are inher- 
ent to the thinking being. What God is, is a question 
that fashions itself according to each man's mode of 
thought at the time being. The impressions in child- 
hood being especially viyid, there is danger that degrad- 
ing images stamped then on the mind may long hamper 
^ and infect it. »A child can never rest in an abstract 
^^ idea or sentiment ; he immediately personifies ; and in 
^J^ I this case for any human intelKgence to personify, is to 
^t ifalsify. As the spiritual nature advances, the existence 
^ * {of God is capable of becoming a reality to us through 
^ IHis attributes, and the idea of person is less and less 
'^X |iecessary to our conception of His being^ Is it wise, 
then, to suffer a child to cloud his young brain and 
sully his imagination with wild and puerile fancies 
which, in after years, will be so much dust and cobweb 
before his mental vision % Notice the kind of impres- 
sion which the religious teaching of the nursery often 
makes upon a child from two to five years old. He 
talks and asks about God in the midst of his gambols 
without the slightest reverence, and with a mischievous 
gusto, because it makes nurse look mysterious and 
shocked; his prayers are a sort of game, till nurse 
makes them a most irksome task by requiring him to 



The Religious Feelings. 139 

look grave and keep still while he says them. Soon 
this prankishness may be subdued and the child may 
become outwardly decorous, and parents who believe 
religious education to consist in saying prayers and cat- 
echisms, behaving well at church, reading the Bible and 
being quiet on Sundays, may feel quite satisfied. Mean- 
while, if children could give correct utterance to their 
fancies, it would be curious to know the various pict- 
ures of God which such teaching forms in their minds. 
Often the notion is of a colossal human being sitting 
on a throne, with his eyes constantly fixed on them. 
In one child it was an uninviting old man, perpetually 
employed in making men, women, and children out of 
dust and throwing them down to the earth as soon as 
they were done. In another, it was a great eye, blue 
and glassy, ever pursuing her; another child used to 
imagine an eye looking fixedly at her through a crack 
in the ceiling. It is related of Dr. Doddridge that his 
mother taught him the Old and ]!!^ew Testaments from 
the Dutch tiles in the chimney, and accompanied her 
instructions with such wise and pious reflections as 
made a lasting impression on his mind. We fear the 
Dutch-tile association often outlasts the wise reflections. 

Zschokke remarks, " IN^othing in the Christian world 
has so greatly contributed to the decline of Christianity 
as the reigning practice of imparting the higher ideas 
of religion to children at an age when their memory 
only, and not their understanding, is capable of receiv- 
ing them ; and in which a solemn and touching office 
has been degraded to a merely social custom, mechanic- 
ally partaken of from habit and decorum." 

Much depends in religious teaching on the natural 



140 Tlie- Education of the Feelings, 

constitution. In children of a loving nature and poeti- 
cal temperament, the idea of the Father in Heaven 
maj" be very early introduced ; but to one of a timid, 
cold, and literal nature, we should be very cautious in 
the use of any image whatever to convey a notion of 
the Divine Being ; such a child should be led to its 
Creator gradually, and through the medium of the un- 
derstanding; the great idea should grow with its 
growth. The sense of a God may exist in the mind 
before the idea takes name and shape, and the germ of 
holy affections accompany the love of nature, the love 
of fellow-beings, and the principle of right. In a 
child's introduction to the natural world everything 
should form a lesson tending to raise and strengthen 
the feeling of love to nature's God. The order, the 
properties, the beautiful adaptation of all things to our 
happiness should be explained, and in proportion as 
these are seen and understood, the feeling of love to 
the Author of all the good around him, and the source 
of all his own comforts and happiness, must grow in 
the mind of a child. The mind thus daily, hourly ex- 
ercised, there can be no difficulty in making the idea 
of the kindest and best of Beings the most interesting 
and delightful a child can entertain. 

The ordinary mode of introducing the idea of God 
differs much from this. It is forgotten that a child 
can not love, unless the object be of such a nature as to 
excite his affection, and unless his heart be open to the 
sentiment. " The impressions made upon the minds of 
children concerning the Deity are generally painful, for 
His power is much more dwelt upon than His goodness, 



The Religious Feelings. 141 

and they are more liable to be affected by the former 
than the latter." 

The time, and the manner, also, in which the idea is 
commonly presented to the minds of children, tend 
greatly to increase the sensation of fear, and to exclude 
the feeling of love. "Whenever they have done wrong, 
and consequently are wretched and uncomfortable, they 
are told that God sees them and will punish them. 
Here is their terror through Cautiousness excited by 
the ideas of His omniscience and power, but no love. 
Whenever religious subjects are mentioned before 
them, they are reminded that they must be serious, 
which, when required, is always irksome to children, 
and not laugh and play because He is such an awful 
Being ; hence they conclude that He does not like to 
see them happy, and that His service is a restraint. 
And again, it is made an imperative duty to thank 
Him for the past day, and to ask His protection for the 
night, when they are tired and sleepy, and, perhaps, 
shivering with cold, and the idea of devotion is neces- 
sarily associated with irksomeness and fatigue. The 
abuse of an excellent custom is here alluded to, not the 
custom itself, which is one of the happiest that the 
affection of a mother could devise for the cultivation of 
the highest and best feelings in her child. The asso- 
ciation of bodily comfort should be made with that ex- 
ercise of the mind, which reviews the blessings of the 
past day toward itself and others, while it renews its 
aspirations after improvement. The attendance of 
children is sometimes required at long religious serv- 
ices not in any way adapted to their feelings and 






142 The Education of the Feelings. 

capacities, and therefore far more wearisome than prof- 
itable to them ; and while the day chiefly devoted to 
to these is, or ought to be, a season of peace and re- 
freshment to their elders, to children it is too often one 
of tedium and dullness. They can not long be inactive 
and happy, and it can not be the intention of Him who 
gave them their buoyant, restless energies, that they 
should fret against each other or become torpid, for 
want of proper exercise, under the idea of serving 
Him. 
^ ..._},JPai sensations ai^e much more powerful than 

pleasurable ones, and, therefore, if fear be excited, 
great care should be taken that there be sufficient love 
to balance it. Hence, if children be reminded of God 
when they are faulty and uncomfortable, much more 
should they be reminded of Him when they are good 
and happy, and, if possible, let the first impulse of de- 
votion spring spontaneously from the gratitude of the 
soul. Miss Hamilton tells us that she remembers, 
when a very young child, thanking God fervently for 
the pleasure she had had in dancing at a children's 
ball ; and a little friend of ours, on finding a cherished 
doll which had been searched for anxiously many hours, 
clasped her little hands together, and with the most 
grateful fervor exclaimed, " Good God, I thank thee ! " 
No matter what the occasion of the feeling, the feeling 
itself in both these cases puts to shame the prayers 
which many children are made to repeat, parrot-like, 
night and morning, under the superintendence of the 
nursemaid, and associated with nothing but that which 
is chilling and disagreeable. If parents were really as 
anxious that their children should love God, as that 



The Religious Feelings. 143 

they should love themselves, they would use the same 
means for exciting this love ; they v^onld not so much 
enforce it as a duty that He should be loved and 
thanked, as to lead the child to do so of his own ac- 
cord; they would endeavor that He should be asso- 
ciated in their minds with every idea of cheerfulness 
and enjoyment, and thus lay the foundation for a pure, 
rational, and efficient religious principle.^ 



* Not only the language of the sacred Scriptures, but 
also that of religious teaching, and the sacred poetry and 
prayers, as well as the idea of God^s government as set forth 
in theological works, appear to have largely grown out of 
or to have been suggested by the prevalent kingly govern- 
ments among men. As the king was the highest ideal of 
power, and a throne the highest imaginable earthly attain- 
ment, and as kingly power in early times was very abso- 
lute, it was quite natural that God should be called a king 
and His government regarded as a manifestation of abso- 
lute power. In the days of the prophets kings were feared 
and dreaded by the people. The will and word of the king 
carried life or death, sometimes without justice or reason. 
Such, then, was the idea of human government, and it is 
not strange that men, so trained to fear sovereignty, should 
thus be led to regard God as an infinite sovereign, imbued 
with all the tyranny and capricious vindictiveness belong- 
ing to those high ideals of earthly power, yet enhanced to 
an infinite degree. This dread, sovereign power, was called 
God's glory. He was frequently called the God of battles, 
and spoken of as having fury, vengeance and hatred. 
They would naturally worship this almighty power, and be 
likely to forget His goodness. Under such ideas of God, 
the people would learn to fear and dread the Creator, and 
exercise the faculty of Veneration in a manner foreign to 
the real principle of God- worship. Even the psalmist, in 
a moment of ecstasy breaks forth, *'Do not I hate them, 



144 The Education of the Feelings. 

HOPE. 

It is the privilege of the inferior animals to suffer no 
pain beyond that of the present moment, to anticipate 
no evil ; it is the higher privilege of man to look for- 
ward in present ill to f ntm^e good, to feel during the 
fury of the storm the influence of the coming sunshine. 
Religion, philosophy, poetry, have united to class Hope 
among the higher principles of our nature, as the sup- 
port to piety, the element of cheerfulness, the balm of 
human woes ; but we must not confound that exercise 
of the feeling which is purely instinctive and directed 
toward a determinate object, distinct and bright, though 
distant, with that arising from its cultivation as a moral 
feeling. The former will create a sanguine and cheer- 
ful temper, prone to rise when the immediate pressure 



O Lord, that hate thee? I hate them with a perfect 
hatred." 

Do we ever think that the same idea of God pervades 
sacred poetry of a later date? Take the popular and fami- 
liar stanza, 

" Before Jehovah's aviful throne, 
Ye nations how with sacred joy ; 
Know that the Lord is God alone, 
He can create and He destroy / " 

The prevalent idea of God seems to be Sovereignty, 
power! But other sentiments here and there find expres- 
sion, which are more in harmony with true veneration and 
the spirit of the other moral and rehgious faculties. For 
instance, '*As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
pitieth them that fear him. " 

In a semi-barbarous people, to whom war and conquest 
were the high ideal of government and nationality, the 







THOMAS RIVERS. 

HOPE. 

PLATE XIX. 



I 



Hope. 145 

of suffering is taken off — and this is in a measure valu- 
able ; but the latter alone will enable the mind to seek 
for objects of consolation in the midst of pain and dis- 
tress, to turn the attention from what has been taken 
away to what is left, and to remember that " though 
sorrow may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morn- 
ing." It is only when cultivated that the natural feel- 
ing of hope, which gives vigor and animation to the 
season of childhood and youth, can become a permanent 
and elevating principle of mind. 

The first practical lesson which a mother can give to 
her child on this subject is her own habitual cheerful- 
ness ; long before it can be understood in words it can 
be felt by sympathy; her cheerful tone and manner 
will often dispel the infant's rising tear and convert it 



sovereignty and power of kings would color their religious 
as well as social and governmental ideas. 

So long as the young are taught first and chiefly of the 
power, majesty and vengeance of the Almighty, and little 
or nothing of His fatherhood, it is not strange that all 
their ideas of worship are bom of fear rather than of filial 
love. Hence it is, that nine-tenths of the religious conver- 
sation and prayers of Christian people, are addressed to 
Jesus the loving Saviour and ^ ' Prince of peace," and but 
for whose constant pleadings and intercessions, they seem 
to think, an angry God would instantly smite and destroy 
mankind. The truth is, we are taught to love Christ and 
to fear God; and no wonder, for the descriptions of the 
latter are often such as to excite dread rather than filial 
love and reverence. It would not, therefore, be a stretch 
of the truth to say that Cautiousness, rather than Consci- 
entiousness and Veneration, is the basis of the piety of 
many, which is simply heathenish. Fear builds their 
altar; Fear offers the sacrifice. 
7 



146 TJie Education of the Feelings. 

into a smile, and their influence is not less powerful 
with its growing years. A mother who is sensible of 
this will never indulge in a discontented, repining tone, 
whatever may be the vexations she may have to en- 
counter ; neither bodily nor mental suffering will lead 
]ier into peevishness or fretfulness. She will teach her 
children by her own example to look on the bright 
side of everything, to feel, whatever may happen, that 

^ ' The darkest day, 
Live till to-morrow, will have passed away. " 

She will show them how to find some good, even in 
that which at first appears vexations and disagreeable, 
and that apparent misfortune often proves to be quite 
the reverse. If it be a misfortune, still she will lead 
them to make the best of it. If they are disappointed 
of one pleasure, she will point out to them those that 
are still within reach, and that all is not lost because 
the desired object is unattainable. 

The anticipations of children with regard to future 
pleasure are apt far to exceed the reality, and we ought 
to make allowance for them, and sympathize with them, 
not make our cool and experienced feelings the meas- 
ure of theirs, nor expect them to estimate the value of 
their anticipated enjoyment by our standard; but if 
these longings for happiness in store leave the mind 
restless and disinclined to present duties, they are hurt- 
f j1 and should be checked. A child will soon perceive 
that pleasure is increased by the consciousness of having 
omitted nothing that is right to be done, for its sake. 

If excessive anticipations of good be injurious, the 
habit of anticipating evil is much worse. This should 



The Religious Feelings. 14:7 

never be indulged in by young or old. Many of the 
dreaded evils never come to pass. Let us not throw 
away present blessings in fears for the future, but let 
us take every means in our power to avert the threat- 
ened ill, and then leave the success of our efforts to 
wiser disposal than ours. 

Hope is essential to perseverance. If a child, after 
making one or two ineffectual efforts to accomplish 
something which he ought to do, or which it is desirable 
he should do, gives up the attempt despondingly, and 
says, '^ I am sure I never can do it," we should not only 
urge upon him the juvenile lesson, " Try Again," but 
we should assist him to find out the best way of over- 
coming the difficulty, and even half do the task with 
him ourselves, rather than allow him to give up. The 
pleasure of having surmounted one difficulty will stim- 
ulate him to the encounter of another. 

It is a general idea that there are times and seasons 
when we ought not to be cheerful ; when our feelings 
ought to assume a saddened hue, and when we should 
rather encourage the feeling of gloom than endeavor to 
dissipate. Perhaps there is truer wisdom in opening 
as soon as possible the mind in affliction, not only to 
religious sources of consolation, but to the influence of 
all alleviating circumstances. A great philosopher and 
good man used to say, that by long habit he had brought 
his mind to look upon present trouble as he knew it 
would appear to him afterward. If we can realize this ; 
if in sorrow we can reckon the comforts that we have 
left and consider the multitudes who are happy with 
even less ; if we are thankful to God for what remains, 
and console ourselves with the reflection that if time 



148 The Education of the Feelings, 

can not replace our loss, yet every day and every hour 
vp^ill tend to reconcile us to it ; if we endeavor to enter 
at once into the state of mind which a week, a month, 
a year will bring ; then we shall be ready to profit by 
the lesson of cheerfulness which all Nature joins with 
the Apostle Paul in giving — " Rejoice always." "^^ 



* The difference in the mental condition of persons, one 
of whom is strong and the other weak in the development 
of this faculty, is as wide as that existing between riches 
and poverty, or happiness and misery. The politician who 
works a year in a campaign and is beaten in the election, 
if he have large Hope, will say: ** Never mind, we will win 
the next election, four years hence." The farmer whose 
crop fails, will expect from the resting land a double crop 
the next year. Some are desponding, others gather fresh 
hope from defeat, and manage, in feeling, to keep on the 
the crest of the wave. 

The owner, who was informed that one of his sheep had 
given birth to three lambs, instantly anticipated much 
profit by exhibiting them at the next autumn fair. ** But 
one of the lambs is dead." ** All right; then the other two 
will fare all the better. * * But two of them are dead. " * * Ah ! 
then she can do first-rate by the other." *'But all the 
lambs are dead.'' '^All right, then the sheep will get fat 
and be ready for an early market." '^ Yes, father, but the 
old sheep is dead too." "- Is that so? Well, she was a poor 
thing anyway, and would not have amounted to much if 
she had lived." 

*'Hope sprmg:s eternal in tlie human breast, 
Man never ^s, but always to he blest." 

Hope is at least an ingredient in the desire for and ex- 
pectation of a* future state. ** It lifts the curtain of time 
and points to immortality." 



Wonder, 149 

WONDER 

(or spirituality). 

Wonder expresses the superlative degree of the func- 
tion of this faculty ; the feeling usually connected with 
it is simple Faith or Belief. The world, as we con- 
ceive of it, is created in our own minds by our own 
mental faculties, and the sense of its reality is the result 
of this feehng. Certain impressions made upon the 
senses produce within us certain sensations to which we 
give names as to objects without ourselves, and we be- 
lieve in their existence as represented by the mind. 
Mill truly says: "That we know nothing of objects, 
but the sensations we have from them ;" and Hume 
says : " We may observe that it is universally allowed 
by philosophers, and is besides pretty obvious of itself, 
that nothing is ever really present with the mind but 
its perceptions or impressions and ideas, and that exter- 
nal objects become known to us only by the perceptions 
which they occasion. Now, since nothing is ever pres- 
ent to the mind but perceptions, and since all ideas are 
derived from something antecedent to the mind, it fol- 
lows that it is impossible for us so much as to conceive 
or form an idea of anything specifically different from 
ideas and impressions. Let us fix our ideas outside of 
ourselves as much as possible ; let us chase our imagina- 
tions to the heavens, or to the utmost limit of the uni- 
verse ; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, 
nor can perceive any kind of existence but those per- 
ceptions which have appeared in that narrow compass." 

Elsewhere, in writing of this faculty, we observed, 
" The intellectual faculties give ideas, each after its own 



150 The Eduoation of the Feelings. 

peculiar mode or form of intelligence; but \h.Q jpraGti- 
cal helief attending the action of such faculties is alto- 
gether a different thing. Without such a sentiment, 
ideas would pass over the mind like images over the 
surface of a mirror, reason would be paralyzed, and we 
should act like the brutes, only when impelled by in- 
stinct, and not from faith. The excess of Hope pro- 
duces immoderate expectations of felicity not founded 
on reason ; and the excess of Wonder, that is, of this 
faculty of Faith, produces credulity. The pleasure and 
wonder expressed by children and adults who have a 
considerable development of this faculty, at the relation 
of marvelous stories, miraculous and improbable fic- 
tions, proceed from their extra power of belief, from 
their giving to such tales a reality in their own minds 
which to others they do not assume." Dr. Thomas 
Brown has shown that what we call Cause and Effect 
are mere Antecedence and Consequence, and that there 
is no reason that we can discover why any one cause 
should produce any one effect more than another, ex- 
cept that it always has done so — that is, the antecedence 
and consequence have been observed to be invariable, 
the belief of a necessary connection between cause and 
effect is produced by this faculty. It results from this 
that one thing is not more wonderful to young children 
than another ; they believe all things with equal facil- 
ity. There is no real reason that we know of why one 
thing should follow another in the relation of cause and 
effect, except that it does follow it, and there is equally 
no real reason why one thing should not follow another, 
however absurd the expectation that it will do so may 
appear to our mature experience; consequently, chil- 




^^^- 



THOMAS WHITAKER. 

WONDER— SPIRITUALITY. 

PLATE XX. 



Wonder. 151 

dren believe equally in all things — in the most mon- 
strous prodigies of romance as well as in the most 
simple and common events, until experience or their 
teacher has given a proper direction to their faith, and 
taught them the difference between accidental and in- 
variable antecedence. Keither is this kind of faith 
peculiar to childhood : almost every one's reh'gious 
creed contains mysteries, frequently contradictions, 
which are believed equally with the simplest articles 
of faith. Children easily believe — ^they have to be 
taught to disbelieve. They personify everything, and 
live in a world of their own creating, which is as real 
to them as our world is to us. Anything, from a cush- 
ion to a boot-jack, makes into a doll, and the doll is a 
living person — animals talk, trees hold council, and 
flowers have affections. The extreme eagerness with 
which children listen to " a tale," particularly if it re- 
lates to the wonderful, points this faculty out as a most 
valuable vehicle for instruction, and for the exercise of 
our best feelings. While all the faculties of the mind 
are bent with earnest attention upon the story, they are 
open to receive the lessons it may convey, and the vivid 
association of interest will stamp them lastingly upon 
the memory. No accomplishment is more useful to a 
mother or teacher than a facility in the power of throw- 
ing instruction into the shape of a tale ; if this be not 
naturally possessed, it will become easy by practice. 
It does not follow that every tale we tell to children 
must have a moral, and we should be sorry to banish 
all the old nursery tales which have been the delight of 
many and many a generation, although entirely unin- 
cumbered with any moral, except those that offend 



152 The Education of the Peelings, 

against right principle and good taste. The introduc- 
tion of supernatural horrors to children's minds has been 
already deprecated, as far as can now be necessary. 

The proper use of this faculty, and the direction we 
should endeavor to give to it in our children, is faith in 
ourselves, and in those upon whom their guardianship 
depends : faith whose fruit is confidence and obedience. 
In childhood all is mystery, doubt, and ignorance ; let 
the child, then, lean upon its parent with that trust 
which produces hope and love. And if a child be prop- 
erly trained, the feeling in mature age will be readily 
transferred from the earthly to the Heavenly Father. 
Ignorance and Mystery must still exist, but there can 
be no Doubt. God has planted within us moral in- 
stincts, affording a natural revelation of His Will, and 
their dictates must not be disregarded in obedience to 
what fallible man may proclaim as another revelation. 
Those in whom such faculties are fully developed, and 
and who have received otherwise a good education, 
must believe that God wills the good of His creatures ; 
that if He punishes them it is for their good ; that they 
have but to learn His Will and do it, to secure theii 
happiness and well-being ; that on all occasions having 
done what He commands, we may safely leave the re- 
sult to Him; that He knows on all occasions what is* 
best for all, and that we may safely, therefore, place 
ourselves with all confidence in His hands ; that evil 
and all things will be made to work together for good, 
and to prepare the way for the reign of the true and 
the beautiful even upon this earth."^^ 

* Faith, belief, hunger for the strange, unusual and won- 
derful, seem to arise from this faculty. The human soul 



Wonder. 153 

The feelings of which we liave now to treat, are good 
or bad according to the other feelings with which they 
ally themselves. They may be equally the servants of 
all the faculties: thus Attention, Perseverance, Firni« 
ness. Imitation, may belong equally to the murderer 
and to the philanthropist. They are not virtues in them- 
selves, but they give concentration, power, and perma- 
nence to the other faculties. 



yearns after something real beside real estate, something 
true beside mathematics, something enduring beside gran- 
ite and diamonds. It is an element in discovery or inven- 
tion, at least tends to inspire the feeling of wonderful pos- 
sibilities in the realm of the undiscovered. One having 
little of this faculty and of Ideality will suppose present 
development covers all that is possible, and he will not 
believe in nor look for more. Hence it is that inventors 
are sometimes impractical dreamers, and believe in much 
more than they have the talent to develop. Hence *^ per- 
petual motion " is always being sought for and confidently 
expected, by some. The navigation of the air has its devo- 
tees, but most thinkers see obstacles which they feel sure 
are insurmountable. Religious faith seems to be rich, full, 
and comforting, in proportion to the development of this 
faculty. Conscientiousness and Benevolence are some- 
times strong in those who lack Veneration and Spirituality. 
They are just and kind, but they are called skeptics, and 
sometimes infidels. Some we find who have Spirituality 
large and Veneration moderate, and they see little signifi- 
cance in worship, but they have an upreach of soul which 
carries them beyond the dust and din of secular life, and 
gives them that high communion which is unutterable. 

7* 



154 The Education of the Feelings. 






CONCENTRATIVENESS AND INHABIT- 
IVENESS.* 

Man is the creature of habit ; most of his actions are 
not the result of volition, but of habit; and the great 
object of the training of the feelings is to produce vir-* 
uous habits, for these alone can be relied upon ; with- 
them only is "the soul's calm sunshine." Much of the* 
exercise which the mind is required to go through is 
valuable from no other result but the formation of 
habit. If nothing else follows from order and system 
and application, we ought to be satisfied with that. 

* Mr. Combe recognized an organ located above Philo- 
progenitiveness and below Self-Esteem, and called it Con- 
centrativeness. Dr. Spurzheim called the same region In- 
habitiveness, and between them both they described both 
functions, viz. : union and continuity of thought, and the 
sense of local habitation. American Phrenologists recog- 
nize and describe both faculties, and ascribe the lower part 
of the region in question to the faculty of Love of Home, 
or Inhabitiveness, and the upper, to Concentrativeness or 
Continuity. 

Those who have the upper part of the space in question 
large, manifest unity of thought and feeling, patient, plod- 
ding persistency. When it is small, persons fly from one 
thing to another; are adapted to rapidly changing condi- 
tions and avocations, disUke prolixity in statement, or per- 
manency in the processes of business; they Uke many things 
to look after, attend to particulars, aud do well in retail 
or variety business; can superintend factories where many 
things and processes are to be attended to in quick succes- 
sion. One having it large plods ; prefers a long, straight, 
level road, a long seam, or steady and changeless job; a 
sohd page or column in reading; and they are likely to be 
prolix as writers, speakers, or talkers. By observation 




R. MURCHISON. 
CONTINUITY~-CONCENTRATIVENES& 



PLATE XXI. 



Concent/rativeness and Inhabitiveness. 155 

Habits of industry, of attention, of self-snbjection, of 
seK-denial, are more valuable than intellectual acquire- 
ments, and bow we learn is of more consequence in 
childhood than how much we learn. The continual 
dropping of water will wear away the hardest stone, 
and attention and perseverance will overcome the 
greatest difficulties. The object of the above facul- 
ties seems to be to aid in forming habits. Much has 
been written by mental philosophers upon the power 
of association, and perhaps the importance of the sub- 
ject has not been overrated. Concentrativeness gives 
the desire to retain emotions and ideas, and instinctive 
love of dwelling upon them when present, until an asso- 



among vocations we find that both characters are required 
— one can bend over the accounts ; the other looks after 
customers, and the great variety of articles to be judged of, 
described and sold. 

Inhabitiveness. 

That a faculty exists which lies at the foundation of pa- 
triotism, love of country and home, there can be no room 
for doubt, nor does it seem so much to partake of merely 
fixedness or concentrativeness to place, as to give pleasure 
and pride, nay joy, at the possession and ownership of a 
place of abode. How we adorn and decorate ! What hal- 
lowed memories cluster around it ! The cat shows fond- 
ness for home and permits its last and only human friends 
to leave it while she remains in the home and risks the 
reception the new comers may give her. The dog, on 
the contrary, loving home, no doubt, but loving friends 
better, will whine his regret at leaving the only home he 
knows, but he will sacrifice a home so often as his master 
chooses to move, and cling, through Adhesiveness or 
Friendship to the people, and leave the home behind. 



166 The Education of the Feelings, 

ciation is formed between certain feelings, and also be- 
tween such feelings and particular intellectual states. 
Inhabitiveness dwells wdtli as much satisfaction upon 
places as Concentrativeness does upon states of mind, 
producing attachment to home and the love of country. 

Upon Concentrativeness mainly depends the " power 
of Attention," which has been so deservedly dwelt upon 
by writers on education, as indispensable to the culture 
of the intellect, and also of the moral nature ; for, with- 
out it, the efforts of the instructor would be like making 
a rope of sand. It is probably less frequently deficient 
than is imagined ; for the attention of the mind to its 
internal ideas is often the cause of the apparent inatten- 
tion to those presented from without. Its right direc- 
tion depends upon the development of the superior 
faculties ; and if they be weak, the lower ones will seize 
possession of this stronghold and occupy it for their 
own ends. Where this is not the case, and the higher 
powers hold their rightful supremacy, one of them may 
predominate over the rest so much as to fix the atten- 
tion of the mind to the exclusion of others more sea- 
sonable ; it should be the endeavor of the teacher to 
ascertain this leading faculty, and to counteract its un- 
due predominance by exciting the others. The direc- 
tion of this disposition will, therefore, depend upon the 
prevailing feeling, unless checked by the moral sense 
which teaches that it is right to give the whole mind to 
the present duty. 

If, for instance, a child who has an inordinate love 
of eating be receiving a lesson, an incidental allusion in 
the course of it to the beloved subject may fill his mind 
with ideas of good things in reversion j the same lesson 




WM. M. EVARTS. 
INHABITIVENESS. 



PLATE XXII. 



CorbGentrativeness and Inhabilmeness. 157 

may, from another association, induce a second roaming 
in imagination through the fields and woods ; a third, 
to revel in the regions of romance — while the instructor 
marvels that his useful lesson makes so little impression. ^ 
And all this with no deficiency, but merely a misdirec- 
tion of the f eehng of which we are speaking. A child 
of four years and a-half old, whose teacher had tried 
to explain to him the necessity of self-control on this 
point, showed that he was not too young to understand 
it. The next time he was occupied with his lesson, his 
favorite playmate entered the room ; in a tone of com- 
mand he addressed himself, " Me don't look up when 
Annie comes." 

Where there is no original want of this feeling it is 
often much weakened by injudicious management in 
infancy, as many excellent writers have observed. The 
active, impatient nurse will not suffer the child's atten- 
tion to attach itself undisturbed to the object which 
takes its fancy. When he grasps the new substance, 
fixes his eyes intently upon it, begins to consider what 
it is like and what it is for, she snatches it hastily away 
and attracts his notice to something else : thus prevent- 
ing the little philosopher from making his own experi- 
ments and drawing his own deductions. By a constant 
repetition of this treatment, the mind becomes inca- 
pacitated for patient and continued thought. 

"We must remember, also, that many children," says 
Eichter, ''have, in common with men, an incapability 
of instantaneous cessation from what they are doing. 
Often no threatening can stop their laughter. We should 
remember the converse when they are crying, in order to 
treat their weakness as a physician rather than as a judge." 



l58 The Education of the Feelings. 

If, on the contrary, this faculty be constitutionally 
weak, Ave must be careful to make the subjects upon 
which it is exercised as interesting as possible, in order 
that the pain of giving attention may be outweighed 
by the pleasure it will occasion. A celebrated author 
well remarks, " There is no memory without attention, 
and no attention without interest." 

Perhaps the excess of this faculty is less common than 
its absence, but this excess has sometimes to be cor- 
rected. It is possible to pay too much attention to a 
study or pursuit, excellent and important in itself, and 
to suffer the mind to be engrossed by it to the exclusion 
of more extended and general information, until we 
become partial and contracted in our views, and incapa- 
ble of estimating the true value of our own department 
of knowledge. 

We may sometimes trace the prevalence of the feel- 
ing, in a minor degree, in the tenacity with which some 
persons cling to a subject in conversation, and the pain 
which they appear to feel when compelled to turn their 
attention to something else. 

When a child seems absorbed so much in one partic- 
ular mental occupation as to take no interest iit any- 
thing else, it is desirable that he should be shown how 
all the branches of knowledge are connected with and 
throw light upon each other, and how he can not even 
know all relating to his favorite subject without enlarg- 
ing his acquirements. 

It occasionally happens that a child appears to be 
haunted by a particular set of feelings and ideas ; they 
follow him through the day and form liis dreams by 
night. This, perhaps, is owing to some morbid state of 



Fi/rmness. 159 

the system, as well as to an excess of Concentrative- 
ness ; but in either ease the mind should be gently led 
away to opposite ideas, and both mind and body receive 
as much relaxation as possible. 



FIKMNESS. 



Firmness gives strength and efficiency to every virtue 
and quality of mind. Constancy, fortitude, determina- 
tion, perseverance, which are its manifestations, are es- 
sential to force of character and consistency in action. 
The character may be amiable, the wish to do good 
sincere, but without unity of purpose and perseverance 
in execution, even virtuous efforts will produce small 
fruits. The Apostle says : " He that wavereth is like 
a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed.'' 
We have more cause to fear the w^ant of the feeling 
than its predominance, for what in childhood may show 
itself in stubbornness and obstinacy, will, if the proper 
cultivation of all the other faculties be attended to, be 
displayed in manhood in the virtues of perseverance, 
fortitude, and patience. 

A child who is deficient in Firmness will be prone 
to yield to the impulses of any feeling that may pre- 
dominate at the moment ; he will be apt to procrasti- 
nate, to shrink from doing anything disagreeable, how- 
ever necessary. If a tooth must be drawn, or a bitter 
medicine taken, or a tedious sum worked again, the evil 
moment is put off if possible. Undertakings will be 
continually begun and continually thrown aside, uncom- 
pleted, in favor of new schemes. Good resolutions, 



160 Tlie Education of the Feelings. 

formed when the mind is fresh and active, will give 
way when the stimulus is withdrawn, or when tempta- 
tion presents itself. 

Wliere this weakness is observed, the force of habit 
must be brought to bear against it. Regular and con- 
stant application must be enforced, and kept up by the 
assistance of the best feelings ; but only for short and 
certain periods. No disinclination, no idle excuse, must 
be permitted to postpone the performance of a present 
duty. The pleasure of conquest over seK in submitting 
to a present pain, and thus avoiding a future greater 
one, besides all the pains of irresolution, must be made 
clear and enhanced ; and whenever any degree of self- 
conquest or perseverance is sbown, it should be encour- 
aged by sympathy and assistance. 

If it happen that the feeling of Firmness is stronger 
than the intellect, it will take the form of obstinacy, 
because, in that case, the judgment is not always capa- 
ble of determining when Firmness is misplaced. This 
frequently occurs, and very delicate management is re- 
quired to prevent occasional obstinacy from settling 
down into a habit of perverseness. Some parents and 
teachers have themselves the love of authority so strong, 
that they would actually prefer that a child should do 
right because they command it than of its own accord ; 
it requires a stretch of magnanimity of which all are 
not capable, to be satisfied that their child should judge 
and act wisely without interference on their part. 
Their aim seems to be less that of teaching a child to 
walk alone, than to strengthen the leading strings which 
attach it to themselves. But let them remember that 
they thus gratify their own propensities at the child's 




MARSHALL P. WILDER. 
FIRMNESS. 



PLATE XXIII. 



Fi/rmness. 1 61 

expense. It is a common notion that the first thing to 
be done in training a child is to " break its will." Are 
parents sure that this does not arise from the love of 
power in themselves ? Little do they imagine the evils 
generated in thq harsh process ! 

There are few children who would not obey from 
motives of affection and duty, if they were made to feel 
that nothing was required of them but what was right 
and reasonable. Implicit obedience should rarely be 
enforced, unless the confidence and affection on the 
part of the child be strong enough to counteract the 
violence that such a requirement must do to his feel- 
ings. Of course this does not refer to very early child- 
hood, when obedience must frequently be required 
without rendering a reason, plainly because the reason- 
ing power is not developed to receive it ; but even then 
the command itself must be reasonable. 

The word obstinacy is often applied to the conduct 
of children, when in reality very different feelings come 
into play, all producing similar external manifestations. 
A child may be directed to do something which he 
thinks involves an injury to himself; his natural Firm- 
ness will assist the feeling of Oppositiveness in resisting 
the command ; it may include something which he im- 
agines to be wrong; his Firmness will then be sup- 
ported by his sense of right ; or he may not really un- 
derstand what the injunction means ; or may oppose it 
from the mere superabundance of Firmness itself-, 
which last alone is obstinacy, strictly speaking. Now, 
all these cases we are apt to call cases of obstinacy, and 
treat them in the same manner, whereas they proceed 
from totally different sources, and require dealing with 



162 The Education of the Feelings. 

accordingly. In the last instance we must be sure that 
the command is necessary before it is given, and kind- 
ness must unite with determination in exacting obedi- 
ence. But all occasion for combats of this description 
should be studiously avoided ; it would be much wiser 
to give too few commands than to give too many."^ 



'*' There are two kinds of Firmness, or two phases of the 
manifestation, apparently irrespective of the temperament 
of the constitution, and the development of the other 
mental organs. The first is persistence ; the tendency to 
hold on quietly and wait for a chance. The man who 
manages the hawser which has been thrown over the post 
on the dock, and has been passed around the cleet on the 
ship's deck, waits for the surging waters or the easy rolling 
of the ship to bring it up toward the dock, and thus *' slack 
the line," when he expertly loosens from the cleet and 
^* hauls in the slack; " but as soon as the vessel begins to 
** fall off" again he ^^ makes fast " to the cleet, and thus he 
manages until the vessel is brought up and securely fast- 
ened to the dock. Men quietly hold on their way ; if met 
by bold opposition they may not meet it by strife, but wait 
for opening circumstances, when they make progress again. 

The other kind of Firmness is called obstinacy. It tries 
to force things. It will not wait; becomes impatient, and 
frets and worries if hindered or compelled to change a 
course. Two brothers quarreled about the division of the 
homestead farm, and lived thirty years near neighbors 
without speaking to each other. One of them being, as 
he thought, near his death, sent for his brother and said 
he wished to make peace before he died, which was agreed 
to. A few days afterward the sick man had so far improved 
as to hope for recovery, and told the visiting brother he 
thought he might possibly recover. He replied, * * If you 
die all our matters are settled, but remember, if you get 
well the old grudge holds good." 



Firmness, 163 

There is a passage in a recent magazine article con- 
taining some excellent remarks touching this subject, 
although it does not bear exactly upon the feeling un- 
der notice, as the obstinacy which proceeds from resist- 
ance to a supposed injury is, as above said, not a case 
of the genuine feeling : " Nothing fosters obstinacy like 
contention. It has been said, and there may be some 
truth in the idea, that it is right to do battle once with 
an obstinate child, and by overcoming it make him 
aware of his habit, and also convince him of his power 
and yours to conquer it. But it is very questionable 
whether these victories do not leave behind them a re- 
sentfulness and soreness which it takes years to efface. 
However this may be with regard to habits already 
formed, certain it is that one should try to prevent the 
formation of the habit, a thing only to be done by ana- 
lyzing the feeling. What is obstinacy but the resist- 
ance to a supposed injury ? Is there any other cure for 
it than a conviction in the child of the lovingness and 
good sense of its conductor ? Is that conviction likely 
to be wrought by the tortures by which people usually 
seek to conquer a fit of obstinacy ? Would obstinacy 
ever spring up under an intelligent guidance ? Must it 
not have been engendered by a loss of confidence, caused 
by a quantity of useless requisitions on the part of the 
educator ? Here comes in that principle of action which 
meets us at every turn, viz., to wait patiently till expe- 
rience shall have tutored the will. No one will obsti- 
nately resist that which he sees to be his good ; it is for 
this seeing that the parent must so often be content to 
wait. Too great care can not be taken, likewise, that 
we do not call that obstinacy which is often stupidity 



164 The Education of the Feelings, 

on the one hand, or fimmess of principle on the other." 
"To be very careful not to tax a child unjustly with 
obstinacy, or to engender it by ill-advised demands, and 
to be content when it exists to let it melt away gradu- 
ally under the influence of growing affection and sym- 
pathy; such should be the course adopted toward the 
obstinate. JSTor should one ever lose sight of the fact 
that all wrong is but excess of good, and that that which 
under the name of obstinacy looks so hideous, springs 
from the very principle of our nature, which, well di- 
rected, we should all venerate under a thousand lovely 
forms, such as firmness, fortitude, liberty, decision, etc." 

Again, therefore, we say, avoid, if possible, doing 
battle with obstinacy ; to resist the feeling only strength- 
ens it. Employ patience, kindness, reasoning ; threats 
and punishment only increase the evil. Of course there 
are times and occasions when commands must be given, 
and when this is the case, they must be obeyed alwa/ys^ 
and under all cirGumstanGes / but such instances should 
be very rare. 

No eminence is ever reached without continued ef- 
fort ; nothing valuable is ever attained without perse- 
verance ; let us, therefore, carefully cultivate this fac- 
ulty. Endure hardness, says the preacher — and a large 
proportion of that which is disagreeable must enter into 
our every-day life ; this faculty will mainly help us to 
bear it, will put us in harmony with it, and even furnish 
a kind of pleasure of its own in the fortitude and endur- 
ance called for : 

** Into life's goblet freely press 
The leaves that give it bitterness." 

Tq do only that which is pleasant, soon engenders a 



Imitation. 165 

state of mind altogether at variance with steady appli- 
cation and continued effort ; it makes self-sacrifice hard, 
and duty difficult. Self-denial must be practised on 
small as well as on great occasions, and those whose 
habits are self-indulgent wi^^ be weak, irresolute, and 
easily overcome by temptation. 

As a gladiator trained the body, so must we train the 
mind to self-sacrifice " to endure all things," to meet 
and overcome difficulty and danger. We must take 
the rough and thorny road as well as the smooth and 
pleasant ; and a portion, at least, of our daily duty must 
be hard and disagreeable ; for the mind can not be kept 
strong and healthy in perpetual sunshine only, and the 
most dangerous of all states is that of constantly recur- 
ring pleasure, ease, and prosperity. Most persons will 
find difficulties and hardships enough without seeking 
them ; let them not repine, but take them as a part of 
that educational discipline necessary to fit the mind to 
arrive at its highest good. 



IMITATION. 

The natural language of every feeling is more or less 
marked on the person and in the countenance, and no 
doubt there is a faculty which at once recognizes and 
sympathizes with this natural language of the feelings. 
Through this unknown faculty we gain an instinctive 
knowledge of character, as through it we enter at once 
into the mind of another, and for a time may be almost 



166 The Education of the Feelings. 

said to become a part of that other mind.^ From its 
imusual development in such men as Bacon, Shake- 
speare, and Scott, is probably owing their deep in- 
sight into human nature. Many phrenologists now ad- 
mit its existence. As tliis instinct induces sympathy 
of feeling, so Imitation produces sympathy of action, 
and copies the manners and gestures of others! Every 
spirituality or idea, before it can be born into the world, 
and become manifestible to others, must take some 



* The organ whicli, in America, is known as "Human 
Nature," located above Comparison, enables us to appreciate 
strangers, to like one and dislike another at first sight, 
without being conscious of any reason for it which we can 
frame into words. 

The old story of Dr. Fell, who had a pupil in his school 
between whom and himself there seemed to be a natural 
antagonism, illustrates this faculty. Just before recess the 
boy had been busy writing something on his slate, and 
turned it over as he went out. The doctor, perhaps uncon- 
sciously to himself, was watching to find occasion of com- 
plaint against the boy, inquisitively turned over the slate 
and read the lines — 

'* I do not like you. Dr. Fell, 
The reason why I can not tell ; 
But this one thing I know full well, 
I do not like you, Dr Fell." 

This set the doctor thinking, and like a wise man, he tried 
by a course of justice and confidence to overcome the mu- 
tual repugnance. If we begin to manifest kindness toward 
one we do not hke, we soon conquer our unkind spirit ; 
partly, perhaps, because by kindness we call out a kindlier 
spirit from the other toward ourselves ; but chiefly because 
the exercise in ourselves of the feehngs of justice and kind- 
ness brings us into a happy and self-approving state of mind. 




GEN'L JOHN GLOVER. 
IMITATION. 



PLATE XXIV 



i 



Imitation. 16t 

bodily or material form. Imitation copies only that • 
material form, and where the feeling is strong it is* 
sometimes very difficult to distinguish the mere imita--* 
tion of an idea or feeling from the genuine feeling • 
itself. 

Imitation has a very powerful effect in forming and ' 
fashioning our minds and habits. It is owing to this • 
feeling, added to the force ^of sympathy and association, . 
already spoken of, that, imperceptibly to ourselves, we ' 
take the direction of our feelings and the tone of mind ' 
and manners from the age and society to which we be- 
long, and it is not without a strong effort that we can 
break through the spell which binds us to think, to feel, 
and to act with all around us. It is intended to make 
the members of the social body more harmonious. It 
influences us equally in less important concerns; our 
gestures, our modes of speech, our habits of life, the 
regulation of our mutual intercourse, our dress — all fol- 
low the models which the fashion of society sets before 
us. Owing to this copying propensity, each nation has 
its peculiar characteristics ; the European and the Chi- 
nese have each different degrees only of the same men- 
tal faculties ; but, so great is the diversity in their exter- 
nal habits, that we might readily believe them to belong 
to separate planets. 

Boerhaave relates "that a schoolmaster near Leyden 
being squint-eyed, it was found that the children placed 
under his care soon exhibited alike obliquity of vision." 

This faculty seems to be given as the great help in 
education, but it is a help which throws an immense 
responsibility upon parents and teachers. The vices 
and evil habits of parents descend by its means from 



I 



l68 The Education of the Feelings. 

generation to generation — but, through the same means, 
none of their excellencies can be wholly lost. Thus a 
good system of education may do much when aided 
by a good example, but nothing whatever without it. 
Powerful as is the operation of this feeling, and there- 
fore of example, we must be careful lest children do, 
from the mere imitation of those with whom they asso- 
ciate, what ought to proceed from a better feeling — ^from 
a higher principle. They who are not in the habit of 
looking minutely into motives, frequently mistake the 
instinctive action of this feeling for one originating in 
a higher source. This is a dangerous error, for where 
imitation alone is the source of good conduct, that good 
conduct obviously has no root in itself, and will cease 
as soon as the example is withdrawn. The influence 
of example, therefore, in order to be a safe, must be a 
silent one. We must be careful never to say to chil- 
dren, Do so and so because your parents and instruct- 
ors, those whom you respect and love, do so ; but be- 
cause it is right, it is kind, it is wise. While we gather 
around children not only circumstances, but persons 
who will contribute to mould their characters, their 
manners, and their habits to the standard we approve, 
we must sparingly, if at all, present them as models ; 
for besides, as there are imperfections even among the 
excellent of the earth, a child will probably imitate the 
errors which are associated with the virtues — the mind 
will also be led to be satisfied with referring to an out- 
ward tribunal of right, rather than to the inner one of 
duty. To place the companions and equals of children 
before them as examples, is more dangerous still, fronj 



The Peeling of the Ludicrous. 169 

the risk of exciting envy and jealousy instead of tlie 
wish to emulate. 

At the same time that we aim at opening the mind 
to receive all the good which radiates from the exam- 
ples around, we must infuse it into a principle, which 
shall enable it to repel the emanations of evil which 
are also widely diffused. Singularity is to be avoided 
if it can be consistently with reason and justice ; but 
when it can not, then it becomes us to fesist the prompt- 
ings of the feeling which impels lis to do as others do — 
to dare to be singular when the world is wrong ; and 
when we become cognizant of the actual requirements 
of true humanity in its full development, the amount 
of time, wealth, and happiness — of the good, true, and 
beautiful, now sacrificed in the world of fashion — we 
shall see that it is no small part of the instructor's duty 
to give this faculty a wise direction, and to check its 
instinctive manifestation. 

There are many obvious abuses against which we 
shall have to guard in the education of such a propen- 
sity. The habit of indiscriminate mimicry tends above 
all things to the depression of veneration, and worse 
than this, Imitation is capable of becoming a powerful 
ally of love of approbation, in seeming to be virtuous 
instead of really being so. 



THE FEELING OF THE LUDICKOUS, 

OR MIBTHFULNESS. 

Man has been defined as " a laughing animal," and 
his dignity need not reject the definition, for it would 
8 



iiO The Ediication of the Feelings, 

scarcely compensate him for the loss of the chara<3ter- 
istic. When the progress of years and the cares of life 
have somewhat sobered the spirits, who does not look 
back with regret to the joyous mirth of his childhood, 
;and if he can not return to those happy days when he 
himself was '* tickled by a straw," delight in the hearty 
merriment of those with whom they are not past? 
One of the happy effects of the mixture of all ages in 
society, is the enlivening influence of the light-hearted- 
ness and gayety of those in whom life is young, upon 
those whose animal spirits are no longer as buoyant as 
theirs.^ 

" Laughing is good for digestion," as the old saw 
hath it, and '^ he that is of a merry heart hath a con- 
tinual feast," but '^ there is a season for all things under 
the heaven." In very young children laughter is little 



* Mirthfulness, the power to appreciate the ludicrous, is 
especially a huraan faculty. Of this the lower animals are 
denied. No doubt wit, or a sense of the ridiculous and 
absurd, is a great aid to the reason, since Causality and 
Comparison perceive the congruous and appropriate, 
Mirthfulness enables us to perceive the incongruous and 
absurd, and awakens a desire to laugh. Anything absurd 
must be untrue, and wit is a kind of negative touchstone 
of truth. True wit is not confined to the age of youth. 
There is in youth an exuberance of the tendency to laugh; 
almost anything to which they are not accustomed awak- 
ens the desire to laugh. But when the mind becomes 
ripened by time and culture, real wit sparkles in the mind 
of the healthy person of fifty, with brilliancy and intensity 
equal to anything experienced in earlier life. It may not 
make so much noise, neither does a stream after it has be- 
come larger and worn a deeper channel. 




ALLEN GRIFFITH. 

MIRTHFULNESS. 

PLATE XXV. 



The Feeling of the Ludicrous. 171 

more than the expression of a sudden feeling of happi- 
ness ; in time it becomes, in addition, the outward sign^v. 
of the sense of the ludicrous, which often shows itselfv' 
to a degree which demands restraint ; they know how"-- 
to deprecate its effects who have tried tinae after time-^ 
to gain a child's serious attention for five minutes, but*^ 
have failed as often, on account of their pupil's findings 
at every turn something that excites this feeling. When — 
this happens, the teacher must studionsly avoid any 
word, tone, or look, which can awakeL a ludicrous asso- 
ciation, and pass over without the least notice the child's 
attempts to break into witticism, until the work requir- 
ing attention shall be concluded. Another method was 
tried with a child whose mirthful mood was quite in- 
compatible with attention to his lesson — he could not 
heVp laughing, he said. He was advised to jump up, 
run into a comer of the room, and laugh as hard as he 
could. He very readily obeyed, and ran laughing to 
his post, followed by his adviser, who, laughing herself, 
exhorted him to persevere : " Oh that is not half long 
enough ; try again." He did his best, but a few min- 
utes were enough to bring him to his sober senses, and 
he returned to his lesson quite cured of his risibility. 

There may be a strong sense of the ludicrous without 
the power of exciting it in others, which last is wit, and 
depends upon the combination of this sense with other 
mental faculties and peculiarities. In proportion to the 
degree of intellectual cultivation which accompanies it, 
will the pleasure it gives be more or less exquisite. 
Children, therefore, can seldom enjoy the higher species 
of wit, because their knowledge is too limited to enable 
them to understand it ; but whenever they can, they 



1Y2 The Education of the Feelings, 

are quick to appreciate it. They are generally, how- 
ever, most pleased with humor, drollery, play upon 
words, and the inferior kinds of wit which depend upon 
the power of imitation, and their own efforts at wit are 
for the most part of this class. The sayings of children 
may be accidentally witty to those who can perceive an 
incongruity or an unexpected relation which is quite 
hidden to the children themselves. The laughter thus 
excited will abash a child of a timid disposition, and 
add to its natural reserve, while another of a different 
nature will be emboldened by it to the utterance of 
fresh conceits, or perhaps to the repetition of the same, 
over and over again, not doubting that the same effect 
of surprise and laughter will follow as at the first. 
When we laugh at such things, we should explain to 
children why we do so, and not leave them with a vague 
impression on their minds that they have said some- 
thing wrong, or very clever. The remarks of an intel- 
ligent child of quick perception often contain, uncon- 
sciously to himself, the elements of wit. "When the 
child, Charles Lamb, asked his sister in the church- 
yard, after reading the epitaphs on the tombstones 
which memorialized the virtues of each of the departed 
underneath, " And where do the naughty people lie % " 
he did not know that there was wit in the inquiry. 

There is so great a charm in the sportive play of fancy 
and wit, that there is no danger of their being neglected 
and undervalued, or that the native talent for them will 
remain undeveloped; our chief solicitude must be to 
keep them, even in their wildest flight, still in subjec- 
tion to duty and benevolence. We must not allow our- 
selves to be betrayed into an approving smile at any 



The Feeling of the Ludicrous. 1Y3 

effusions of wit and hnmor which are tinctured in the 
slightest degree by ill-nature. A child will watch the 
expression of our countenance to see how far he may 
venture, and if he find that he has the power to amuse 
us in spite of ourselves, we have no longer any hold 
over him from respect, and he will go rioting on in his 
sallies until he is tired, and seek at every future oppor- 
tunity to renew his triumph. Wit undirected by be- 
nevolence generally falls into personal satire — the keen- 
est instrument of unkindness ; it is so easy to laugh at 
the expense of our friends and neighbors — they furnish 
such ready materials for our wit, that all the moral 
forces require to be arrayed against the propensity, and 
its earliest indications checked. We may satirize error, 
but we must compassionate the erring, and this we 
must always teach by example to children, not only in 
what we say of others before them, but in our treat- 
ment of themselves. We should never use ridicule 
toward them, except when it is so evidently good- 
natured that its spirit can not be mistaken ; the agony 
which a sensitive child feels on being held up before 
others as an object of ridicule, even for a trifling error, 
a mistake, or a pecuharity, is not soon forgotten, nor 
easily forgiven. When we wish, therefore, to excite 
contrition for a serious fault, ridicule should never be 
employed, as the feelings it raises are directly opposed 
to self-reproach. 

The love of the ridiculous often becomes so excess- 
ive, that the mind is incapable of the effort of being 
serious for long together, even upon the most serious 
subjects. It is continually darting off in search of the 
ludicrous and the absurd, and the associations thu^ 



1Y4: The Education of the Feelings. 

formed are most detrimental to the progress of mental 
and moral improvement. A peculiar gesture, the dis- 
arrangement of a collar or a cravat, the mis-pronuncia- 
tion of a word, are enough to mar the effect of the 
most instructive and eloquent discourse. We attempt 
to reason, and are met by a jest, a pun, a quibble. To 
turn everything into ridicule is as profitless as it is wea- 
risome. But wit should sparkle among the solid en- 
dowments of the mind that is fully competent to edu- 
cate — there should be the power of amusing as well as 
that of instructing. The influence which a playful wit 
has over children, is shown by the preference which 
they display at a very early age toward persons who 
possess it, and that which it exerts not only over them^ 
but over all whose minds are able to appreciate it, 
proves it to be, when instructed by the intellect, ele- 
vated and refined by ideality, and warmed by benevo- 
lence, one of the choicest gifts to man which Nature 
has bestowed. 

Such are the feelings which by phrenologists are 
termed established, and although the list can by no 
means be considered complete, yet all must admit that 
it contains the principal elements of our mental nature. 
Some of the feelings, as they are now delineated in the 
works of phrenologists, are no doubt too complex in 
their function, and will be resolved, as the science ad- 
vances, into more simple elements ; but still, as the uses 
and properties of atmospheric air were the same before 
it was found to consist of oxygen and nitrogen as after, 
so any future division or sub-division of the mental fac- 
ulties will not falsify our present deductions concerning 
their uses and properties which we have obtained from 



The Feeling of the Ludicrous. 1Y5 

a consideration of them in the aggregate. It is also 
beyond a doubt that there are some primitive feelings 
which are not included in the above list ; but enough 
is not yet known of them to speak decidedly of their 
education ; such are the Love of Knowledge, the Love 
of the Past, Mental Lnitation, etc. As there is a love 
or desire of property, so also is there a desire for men- 
tal acquirement — a love of knowledge for its own sake ; 
and a certain diversity in the mode in which persons 
mentally connect themselves with the events of life — 
some always living in the past, never in the present or 
the future — others never looking back, always forward 
— ^point to some elemental difference for which the 
faculties we have named are not sufficient to account. 
So, also, there is doubtless an intuition into character — 
a faculty which reads the natural language of the men- 
tal states, and which was possessed in a superior degree 
by such men as Shakespeare, Lord Bacon, and Sir Wal- 
ter Scott. But incomplete and imperfect as the phren- 
ological classification of the feelings may be, yet, being 
true as far as it goes, the exposition of the principles 
of our nature which it furnishes is invaluable in educa- 
tion. To give the use of each faculty, point out the 
abuse of which it is susceptible, and show in what that 
abuse consists, must greatly aid a judicious person prac- 
tically acquainted with the management of children, 
and in the habit of applying principles to practice. By 
the assistance of a clever, practical phrenologist, or by 
close attention to natural disposition, the proportion 
in which each feeling is possessed may be ascertained, 
and tolerably correct data obtained on which to form 
our system for the restraint of some feelings and the 



ITO The Editcation of the Feelings. 

strengthening of others. It must be admitted that the 
faculties seldom act alone, but usually in combination 
with others, and some qualities of mind are of so com- 
plex a character that they could not properly be included 
under any of the separate heads ; but, still, if each feel- 
ing be trained aright, the virtue which is the compound 
result will be certain to show itself in full strength. 

The following subjects could not be properly treated 
under the same headings as any of the mental faculties 
taken separately : Authority and Obedience, Temper, 
Punishment, Manners, Example : 

AUTHORITY AND OBEDIENCE. 

It is desirable to leave a child as much at liberty as 
circumstances will conveniently admit, and to give as 
few commands and prohibitions as possible. Let the 
child's limbs and affections have full play and free 
scope, and let our endeavor be to assist the natural 
growth and enter fully into his mind and spirit. But 
if a command must be given, give it at once, as that 
from which there can be no appeal ; the reasons for it 
are better given afterward, when there can be no inter- 
ested motives to prevent the child from seeing them in 
their proper light. Obedience must always be enforced. 
The penalty of disobedience must be as certain as the 
pain which follows the putting the hand in the fire ; 
for a child must be taught what he will find through 
life — that there is a law controlling his free will for his 
own good. As much as possible let a child's conduct 
be the result of his own free will by a judicious ar- 
rangement of circumstances about him, rather than of 
positive command ; for what a child can be led to do of 




SAMUEL SLOAN. 
AUTHORITY. 



PLATE XXVI. 



Temper. 177 

himself is mucli more valuable in its after result than 
that which is regulated by another's will. There is 
much in choosing just the right instant for making a 
demand ; to stop in the midst of any interesting pursuit 
is always painful. Allow for infirmity of temper, and 
as much as possible let all feeling subside before com- 
mands are given. We may as well command a child 
not to feel the toothache as not to feel anger and irrita- 
tion. Kever forget what a child must be — ^that is, 
what belongs to childhood, and exercise authority as 
little as possible with regard to those things which a 
child must necessarily grow out of in a few years. 

TEMPEK. 

Bad temper is oftener the result of unhappy circum- 
stances than of an unhappy organization ; it frequently, 
however, has a physical cause, and a peevish child often 
needs dieting more than correcting. Some children are 
more prone to show temper than others, and sometimes 
on account of qualities which are valuable in them- 
selves. For instance, a child of active temperament, 
sensitive feeling, and eager purpose, is more likely to 
meet with constant jars and rubs than a dull, passive 
child, and if he is of an open nature, his inward irrita- 
tion is immediately shown in bursts of passion. If you 
repress these ebullitions by scolding and punishment, 
you only increase the evil, by changing passion into 
sulkiness. A cheerful, good-tempered tone of your 
own, a sympathy with his trouble, whenever the trouble 
has arisen from no ill-conduct on his part, are the best 
antidotes ; but it would be better still to prevent before- 
hand, as much as possible, all sources of annoyance. 
8* 



1Y8 The Education of the Feelings, 

Never fear spoiling children by making them too happy. 
Happiness is the atmosphere in which all good aiFec- 
tions grow — the wholesome warmth necessary to make 
the heart-blood circulate healthily and freely ; unhappi- 
ness the chilling pressure which produces here an in- 
flammation, there an excrescence, and, worst of all, ^' the 
mind's green and yellow sickness — ill-temper." Make 
a child unhappy by continually thwarting him, chiding 
him, and punishing him, and ten to one he will soon 
show an evil temper of his own, and a distortion of his 
moral nature. The friction of trial and disappoint- 
ment may be very well afterward, when the character 
has acquired a degree of elasticity and toughness ; but 
in tender childhood it is purely destructive. The trials 
of childhood do not prepare for the trials of manhood. 
That man is stronger to endure and overcome whose 
childhood has been happy and unruffled. A cheerful 
temper is the best friend we can set out in life with, 
and we have a heavy charge to bring against our moth- 
ers and nurses, if by their petulance and mismanage- 
ment they have made us part company. The virtues 
of self-denial and self-control are better fostered under 
happy than under unhappy influences; children will 
delight to make little sacrifices for those they love, if 
asked to do so in a pleasant tone ; and the moral feeling 
will grow apace under the kindly interchange of good 
offices between elders and youngers ; whereas, the dic- 
tatorial manner which those in authority sometimes 
assume, immediately gathers the frost about the young 
spirit, and transforms every good feeling into an irre- 
sistible desire to be naughty. Bad temper, oftener than 
we imagine, proceeds from a lurking spirit of revenge 




HANS MAKART. 
TEMPER. 



PLATE XXVII. 



Temper. I'TO 

for somethirig ugly in our own tone or manner. Fear 
restrains the child from open resistance or passion ; so 
he takes refuge in sulkiness and a general determina- 
tion to be disagreeable and perverse. Many persons 
have a most unfortunate intonation when giving a com- 
mand, injunction, or reproof — whether to their servants 
or children — ^which worse than nullifies all the good 
they intend. If a mother suspect this defect in herself, 
we beseech her to ponder over the mischief of letting 
this association gain strength in herself, and carefully 
tutor herself till every grain of disagreeableness is ex- 
cluded from her method of reproving. If a mother be 
positively ill-tempered, the children have but a poor 
chance ; it is next to impossible that they should not 
catch a malady so infectious ; but only those persons 
who have much to do with children can know how dif- 
ficult it is to control the temper at all times, and how 
important."^ Honor be to the governess who makes 



* It should not be forgotten, that if a mother have an 
ill-temper, the child has most likely inherited from her no 
small degree of her spirit. It often happens that a step- 
mother gets along much more smoothly with the children 
than their own mother — is practically more kind and just 
to the children, and that they love her better than they 
could have loved their own mother if she had been spared ; 
for the simple reason that her disposition may be more 
amiable ; they certainly are not so much alike as they and 
their real mother, and therefore their sharp points of char- 
acter do not come in the same places; and therefore they 
do not mutually annoy each other as the child and its own 
mother would have done. We believe the average training 
and treatment of stepmothers toward stepchildren, are quite 
as good, and much more uniform and successful than is 



180 The Education of the Feelings. 

the daily tasks pleasant and profitable by her cheerful 
voice and manner, and overcomes the listlessness or 
f retfulness of her pupils by a happy mixture of brisk- 
ness and gentleness; when, perhaps, meanwhile her 
own thoughts are far away, and burdened with many a 
sad feeling. And also honor to the mother who can 
bear the noisy overflow of her children's high spirits, 
when her own are under par, and return gentle answers 
to their constant, importunate queries, when suffering 
from bodily weakness or mental anxiety. 

PUNISHMENT. 

The wholesome administration of punishment de- 
mands the most delicate skill and clear-sightedness, 
with undeviating rectitude of purpose. Tt is a medi- 
cine which, by too frequent use, not only loses all its 
efficaciousness, but injures and tends to destroy the nat- 
ural functions of the mind. The mind of a young 
child in a healthy state — that is, with well-balanced 
feelings and propensities — is naturally disposed to love 
goodness and hate wrong-doing, and has a sufficient 
rectifying power in itself to recover from slight devia- 
tions, which is only disturbed and perverted by exter- 
nal interference. If the undue excitement of some 
selfish inclination has led a child into naughtiness, the 
aid of the parent may be required by gentle reprimand 
and the contagion of kindly feeling to restore the bal- 



the case where the natural tie exists — or it would be so if 
the relatives of the first wife would mind their own busi- 
ness and not directly or indirectly awaken in the children 
of the first mother a spirit of jealousy and distrust of the 
stepmother. 



Punishment. 181 

ance of moral perception ; but this done, no more is 
needed ; tlie re-awakened conscience will inflict its sal- 
utary pain, aided by the humiliation of honest shame.' 
Whenever these best of guardians perform their part, 
punishment would be only injurious. The love of 
goodness is restored — only encouragement in the return 
to it is required. Let the child feel that its parent only 
wishes him to be good, and let him feel that as soon as 
he is good he has a right to be happy. As soon as the 
naughtiness subsides, and the desire for goodness re- 
turns, there should be no fear of punishment to check 
it ; let the affectionate smile be waiting to greet its first 
appearance, and no grave lecture recall the suUenness 
that is past. This winning of children out of their 
infant foibles is quite different from the weak indulg- 
ence which spoils them ; clogging their stomachs with 
most deleterious sweets, and destroying their appreci- 
ation of healthy food — the bread of life. There can 
not be too strict vigilance on the part of parents to keep 
children from the path of wrong, and to draw them 
from it by unceasing patient efforts, when they have 
once relapsed. However small the sin — ^however even 
pretty the naughtiness may appear in its miniature pro- 
portions, let parents remember it is great to them ; its 
deadly nature is the same, and will infallibly develop 
itself in time. Let there be no indulgence here, let 
their displeasure attend every fault, but let their cordial 
approbation immediately accompany virtue. So that 
we should say, as a general rule, let there be no punish- 
ment — by which we mean the express external infliction 
of pain, either mentally or bodily — after a fault is over, 
while the child is yet so young as to be merely uuder 



182 The Education of the Feelings. 

the government of instinct and impulse, that is, per- 
haps, till the age of five years. There are, indeed, 
sometimes cases in which a child appears fixed in a 
state of suUenness or passive rebellion, from causes that 
are mainly physical, and refuses to obey chiefly from 
the difiiculty of rousing itself out of its sluggish inert- 
ness of body ; too naughty to take the refreshing run 
in the garden which would restore its healthy action. 
It may then be well to rouse the physical energy by a 
vigorous shake, or even, in very stubborn cases, by a 
blow ; at all events, this would be much better than 
serious remonstrance and lecturing, where there is no 
capacity or inclination to hsten to it — a beating down 
of the mind, a moral drubbing, which may give satis- 
faction to the provoked inflictor, but does irremediable 
mischief to the bewildered victim. After reason has 
become so much developed as to be a habitual guiding 
power, when transgression has become deliberate, it 
may be profitable to detain a child more or less in a 
state of mental suffering, or deprivation of happiness ; 
it may do him good to ponder awhile over his folly and 
its consequences. He will feel that he has deserved 
pain ; he will acquiesce, or may be led to acquiesce, in 
his own punishment. Without this acquiescence pun- 
ishment can never be otherwise than injurious. It will 
appear merely as a tyrannical power and vengeance, 
and will stimulate all angry and revengeful feelings in 
return. As soon as the parent appears in this light of 
a tyrant, his moral power is lost. Rebellion, or, worse 
still, slavish, cowardly obedience, will ensue. He must 
be recognized by the child as only the administrator of 
the Divine law of retribution, which is written upon 



Manners. 18S 

his own conscience, and then no evil feeling will result 
—no permanent evil feeling, even though the human 
infirmity of the parent should lead him to undue se- 
verity. 

MANNERS. 

Few persons in these days are so cynical as to main- 
tain that manners are of no consequence. Though they 
are but the external surface of character, and therefore 
not of the vital importance which belongs to the inner 
life and root of it, still it would be absurd to deny that 
the qualities of that surface do very much concern the 
happiness both of the individual and of society. If 
beauty alone were in question, the outward grace of 
manner would deserve and repay such sedulous care. 
The gardener's labor is not spent in vain when he cher- 
ishes into bloom merely the brilliant-tinted flower. The 
wise cultivator of the human plant, however, will bear 
in mind the analogy of nature, and will not think he 
can produce that beauty by painting the surface. If 
art can add a tint to the flower, it must be by laying no 
pigment on the petal, but by infusing a new chemical 
element into the soil, which must ascend through the 
pores of the stem, and be elaborated in its secret glands. 
And so to cultivate manners that v/ill be really attract- 
ive, we must labor from the soul of man outward, and 
they in their turn will re-act upon the inner life and aid 
the growth and development of virtuous character ; as 
those flowers and leaves with their polished surfaces 
imbibing the sun and air give back nourishment to root 
and stem. 

Good manners should be cultivated because, flrst, 
they a/re good ; they are beautiful, suitable, proper ; 



184 The Education of the I^eelings. 

they gratify the artistic perception in ourselves ; a re- 
fined mind would prompt to elegant action in a solitary 
wilderness ; in the second place, because they are agree- 
able to others, and to give pleasure is no mean branch 
of benevolence. Let the best motives be present to 
the mind of the teachers and the taught, and the work 
will be incomparably best performed. Let children be 
trained to sit quietly, to talk gently, to eat with nicety, 
to salute gracefully, to help another before themselves, 
because it \^ proper^ it is kind, it is becoming to do so ; 
not because Mrs. Grundy will stare at them and think 
them naughty if they do otherwise. It is best of all to 
behave prettily, because it is pretty ; it is well to be- 
have prettily, because it will please Mrs. Grundy ; the 
lowest motive, which leads to merely artificial and 
counterfeit elegance, is to behave prettily because Mrs. 
Grundy will think it pretty. 

Politeness, which Johnson describes to be " the never 
giving any preference to oneself," frequently, we know, 
lies all upon the surface; still, this is better than the 
absence of it ; for, as we have already intimated, the 
habitual regard to observances which are prescribed 
upon the principles of benevolence, which is at the root 
of all politeness and good manners, will lead by degrees 
to the love and practice of benevolence itseK. And 
when it is considered how contagious are all the feelings 
of our nature, whether good or evil — how the frown 
will excite an answering frown, as smiles will kindle 
smiles — ^how the rude jest will provoke the insolent 
reply — how he that always takes care of number one, 
will find himself jostled by a host of equally indepen- 
dent units, whose bristles are roused in emulation of 



Example. 186 

Hs own — it is evident that the well-being of society is 
aflEected in no slight degree by the regard which is paid 
to the outward decencies and amenities of life. Man- 
ners may not now mean morals, but they are the best 
possible substitute. 

EXAMPLE. 

We mtist here again repeat the great rule in educa- 
tion : Be yourself what you wish your children to be ; 
or to express it more practically. Be yourself under the 
guidance of the same principles as those by which you 
would guide your children. There may be natural rea- 
sons why a parent can not in all things be a pattern 
for his children — besides difference in age there may 
be infirmities and deficiences over which he has no con- 
trol ; besides which, they may be differently constituted, 
so that the rule which is right for him may not be ap- 
plicable to them. In the striving, then, after excel- 
lence, rather than in any condition of Being actually 
attained, he must be an example to his children, and 
never, through any false idea of maintaining his au- 
thority, inspiring reverence — in short, humoring his 
own pride, attempt to concentrate their view on him- 
self as their beau ideal, and so heap a weight of respon- 
sibility on his own head which he is naturally incapable 
of sustaining. 

The duty, then, of parents in the matter of example 
is twofold. To make right principles living realities, 
by their own obedience to them, and to gain such an 
attractive power over the minds of their children, that 
they, too, shall be brought into the same subservience. 

It does not necessarily follow that children should 



186 Tiie Education of the Feelings. 

imitate their parents or instructors : they will invaria- 
bly imitate those who most forcibly fix their attention. 
A mother or governess may be most wise, most virtu- 
ous, most everything, but if there happen to be in the 
nursery or neighborhood any who will amuse their 
fancy with marvelous stories, answer all their questions, 
and invent fascinating games, these geniuses will be, in 
the child's judgment, authorities of a much higher or- 
der than the keepers of the law in the parlor. Supe- 
riority of mind in itself, and the tendency to quietness 
and reflection which the possession of knowledge gives, 
often add much to the indisposition of grown-up per- 
sons to amuse children in their own way ; and a romp- 
ing nursemaid will, therefore, soon obtain a hold over 
them which the mother falls to do. Whoever can 
make children the happiest will have the most influence 
over them, and it is much easier to make them happy 
by exciting their animal spirits than by interesting 
them mentally. Persons of coarse, uneducated minds, 
generally appeal directly to these animal feelings in 
their efforts to amuse children, and will draw away 
aflfection and influence from the careful instructors who 
try to make progress by delicate and less exciting 
means. Parents, then, must learn the art of inspiring 
interest in the pursuits which they themselves direct, 
and there must be such happy associations with all the 
intercourse between them and their children, that no 
gratifications which can be procured from other sources 
shall really have a counteracting charm. 

It is piteous sometimes to see what a dull place the 
drawing-room is made to a child, and how it must soon 
learn to dislike the society of its parents and their 



Examj^le, 187 

friends. So long as it sits quietly and makes no noise 
and looks like a little block of wood, it is called a good 
child, and perhaps overwhelmed with kisses — that is to 
say, commended for being inanimate and indolent, and 
for making no use of its faculties. But as soon as it 
begins to grow restless, to pull about everything within 
reach, and to urge eagerly, and perhaps noisily, oft- 
repeated questions concerning the nature and reason of 
this thing and that, the bell is rung, the child is con- 
sidered a nuisance and given to the servant ; and while 
it is almost bursting with shame and disappointment, 
which it can only express by cries and sobs, '^naughty 
child" is reiterated, and it is again banished to the 
nursery. It is, in fact, punished for being happy, for 
employing its powers, for making its own best efforts 
for expanding its little mind; and precisely at the mo- 
ment when the faculties are in the best possible state 
for receiving right impressions, they are checked ; bad 
feelings are excited, and it is sent among those who 
may perhaps misunderstand its wishes, and thwart or 
punish its anxious desire to Tcnow j leaving the poor 
child with a deep and bitter sense of unjust treatment. 
It is granted that children fnust not talk and be troub- 
lesome in company ; and one use of a nursery and gar- 
den is to prevent this. There they may have full play 
to work off the animal effervescence in active games 
and bodily exercise of all sorts, and the quieter amuse- 
ments should be reserved for the parlor. A supply of 
little occupations, adapted to his capacity and made in- 
teresting by the explanation and occasional participation 
of his elders, are the best preventives to the restless- 
ness which makes a child troublesome. And whenever 



188 The Education of the Feelings. 

a child can amuse himself without interfering with the 
comfort of others, it seems a pity that he should be kept 
to the nursery. The little creature is constantly im- 
bibing, sideways, so to speak, a portion of all he hears 
and sees, and his character is fed every instant by the 
atmosphere of habits and ideas around him. Can we, 
then, be too cautious with whom we place the child in 
contact ? Surely not ; and yet must we not say that, in 
ordinary cases, nursemaids, often ignorant, and with 
selfish feelings decidedly predominant, are the chief 
companions of the young in early childhood? Easy, 
indolent mothers think themselves fortunate when they 
have a nursemaid who amuses the children well and 
keeps them happy all the day long without any trouble 
to herself ; it is so much burden off her shoulders. She 
is a little annoyed, certainly, to discover that they have 
caught the nurse's grammar and accent, and, perhaps, 
sets herself to work to correct this with much vigilance. 
She does not consider, that when she has succeeded in 
laying a fine coat of varnish on the surface, the tone of 
thought and feehng which has been imbibed deeper 
down lies entirely untouched. In fact, in proportion 
as the children are made happy out of her sight, she 
must be careful to watch over their moral growth, be- 
cause, as was said before, a child's heart opens immedi- 
ately to receive impressions from any one who makes 
him happy. 

But if it be granted that our nursemaids are ineffi- 
cient, do we find that mothers, even among the higher 
classes, are usually adequate to their office ? If we look 
but to the education, the training, which young ladies 
commonly receive — to their course of life at that period 



Example. l89 

of existence when they ought to be qualifying them- 
selves for the important trust which may hereafter de- 
volve upon them — the question answers itself. What 
part of their studies or pursuits bears any direct rela- 
tion to the responsibility they take upon themselves ? 
They come to the task ignorant of the anatomy, the 
physiology, the mental constitution of the young being 
whose charge devolves upon them, and of all the most 
important provisions for insuring its health and happi- 
ness. Engaged in the frivolous pursuits of the world, 
introduced into society at an early age, dressing, danc- 
ing, visiting; when they are called to the most mo- 
mentous duties, they are obliged to rely upon an igno- 
rant nurse, to trust to old women's tales, for what 
ought to have been correct knowledge. It is a fortu- 
nate circumstance in this case if the mother has sense 
enough to know her own unfitness and to delegate the 
oflSce to some one who is qualified ; but if she has true 
reason to believe that she possesses the gift of making 
children happy, and of guiding and governing them 
well at the same time, it ought only to be strict neces- 
sity that prevents her being their chief and almost con- 
stant companion. Those children are much privileged 
who believe their mother to be a treasure of all excel- 
lence as well as their own best friend, and if she can 
gain by fair means such a compliment as a little girl of 
three years old paid her mamma, " You are the bestest 
and beautifullest of all," she will rejoice at it, and turn 
the conviction to good account, whatever hallucination 
there may be in the matter. 

Teaching by bad example we believe to be a fatal 
error. It is often maintained that young people — that 



190 Tlie Education of the Feelings, 

is, boys or young men — should be made acquainted with 
the world and its wickedness, in order that they may 
avoid it : as the Spartans exposed their drunken Helots 
to teach sobriety. This is a very dangerous experi- 
ment. Custom and example have always a tendency 
to become stronger than morality and principle. Under 
strong temptation, the mere knowledge that a thing has 
been done, or is done, weakens resistance, and the first 
step in vice is thus made more easy. After the first 
step, the road presents few obstacles. Keep the mind 
pure and in ignorance of the ways and wickedness of 
the world, in early life at least, until the principles are 
fixed and the vision clear enough to see distinctly where 
the road leads to. 



SECTION III. 

ON THE CONNECTTOIT OF MIND WITH ORGANIZATION — THE 
SUBJECTIYE AND THE OBJECTIVE. 

The Brain is the organ of Mind ; it is not a single 
organ, but many, manifesting a plurality of faculties ; 
and vigor of function, other things being the same, is 
in proportion to the quality, health, and size of the 
organ. It has hitherto been too much the practice to 
consider that Education is everything, and original con- 
stitution nothing ; that mind is a sort of tabula rasa on 
which anything may be written by a careful and judi- 
cious training ; but this is only true to a certain extent. 
Education can do much, but it can not compensate for 
or supply the want arising from original natural defi- 
ciency. How much depends upon ourselves, that is, 
upon original constitution, which the Germans call the 
subjunctive element, and how much upon education, or 
the objective, has never yet been marked with sufficient 
definiteness in works on Education. In the region of 
the Intellect, it is true that extraordinary natural pow- 
ers of mental calculation and mathematical and musical 
and artistic talents have been observed, and also the 
equally marked absence of these faculties ; but the dif- 
ferences in our natural powers of feeling, if equally 
marked, have been less observed and insisted upon. It 
is very generally admitted that the lover's feeling is 
subjective, that is, has its source in himself, and rjot in 



192 The Education of the Feelings, 

the object ; and that the perfection which the mother 
sees in her infant darling and all its pretty ways, is in 
herself 5 and not in the child ; these feelings being strong 
in proportion as Amativeness and Philoprogenitiveness 
are well developed ; but it is not equally apparent with 
respect to the higher feelings of our nature, that a man 
feels justly or kindly, not in proportion to his familiar- 
ity with the truths of Christianity, but as the parts of 
the brain connected with Conscientiousness and Benev- 
olence are large or small. It is not what we know, but 
what we feel, that usually regulates our conduct ; and 
if what we feel depends upon the size of the parts of 
the brain with which the feelings are connected, it is 
useless to deceive ourselves by expecting from people 
more than their organization warrants. If the selfish 
feelings predominate, it is useless to expect other than 
a selfish person, or a superior kind of animal ; the moral 
feelings, though weak, may restrain the propensities 
within the limits of law — common courtesy and polite- 
ness and a good education may enable an individual to 
seem to the world all that the world requires ; but yet 
the character at its base is, and will continue, essentially 
selfish. Where the animal or selfish and the other feel- 
ings are equally balanced, then education and existing 
circumstances or companionship vsdll determine which 
shall predominate. Society, as it at present exists, is 
organized principally upon the predominance of the 
selfish feelings, and ascends in feeling little above the 
self-regarding organs of Self-esteem and Approbative- 
ness. Each person is expected as his first, if not his 
sole, duty to take care of himself. The Christian virtues 
are worn more for ornament than for use, and a selfish 



Connection of Mind with Organization. 193 

person is more in harmony witli things around him than 
those in whom the higher feelings predominate. It is 
diflScult, then, in ordinary society to distinguish one 
class of persons from the other. Although in the home- 
circle the really selfish character is generally recogniza- 
ble, yet circumstances may not arise even in a lifetime 
to test such character before the world or even to 
friends. As we have said before, custom, society, edu- 
cation, aided by Approbativeness, will enable every one 
to talk the language of all the feelings, but the .first 
trial would probably show that all the feelings were by 
no means strong enough to influence the conduct. 

As an illustration, how often do we find such persons 
warm in their expressions of friendship toward the 
prosperous, but equally cool and cautious as regards 
linking themselves by any ties whatever with the un- 
fortunate ; extremely ready to disapprove and blame in 
the day of adversity, or at the best to quietly walk 
away, leaving a fair field for the offices of friendship to 
those always unobtrusive, and frequently, therefore, less 
noticed persons, whose moral feelings are strong as their 
moral organs are well developed. If the organ of Con- 
scientiousness is very deficient, there may be great nat- 
ural kindness of heart and strong religious feeling, but 
there will be as great a moral blindness as there is phys- 
ical blindness where the eyes are closed ; and so of the 
aesthetic feelings, where they are absent, the mind is 
closed to the perception of beauty, of perfection, and 
of poetry. Education can really do very little to com- 
pensate or correct nature's short-comings. It is of no 
use ignoring these truths ; it is much better to know 
what we are — our weakness as well as strength — so that 
9 



191 The Education of the Feelings. 

we may not overrate our powers, and the blind lead the 
blind into tbe ditcli. 

The difference in tbe powers of tbougbt are equally 
great witb tbose of feeling. Tbe objects of knowledge 
are ideas. Ideas, however, are not purely subjective or 
formed within ourselves. Something without ourselves 
which we call matter or the object — but of whose nat- 
ure or essence we know nothing — acts upon the sense, 
the sense upon the intellectual faculty, and the faculties 
are connected with different organs of the brain, the 
vigor of function, or the strength and vividness of the 
ideas, being in proportion to the size of the organs. 
Ideas are thus compounded equally of the object, the 
sense, and the intellect, and we can not resolve an idea 
so compounded into its elements. It has been well ob- 
served, " It is God's synthesis, and man can not undo 
it." We can not tell what the world is, but as it is 
mirrored in our minds — modified by our forms of 
thought — neither can thought or ideas exist, except from 
the action of something external'to ourselves ; therefore, 
Realism and Idealism is a vain distinction, having no 
foundation in human nature at least. Appearances may 
be entirely the production of the mind to which they 
appear, as the Idealists hold ; or they may be the pure 
presentation of the things themselves, as believed by 
the Realists — we have no means of resolving the 
synthesis. 

It is not the intention of the present work to enter 
upon the subject of the Intellectual Faculties, only so 
far as they are connected with the brain, and differ in 
relative strength in proportion to the size of their or- 
gans. Our intellectual faculties give us ideas of things 



Connection of Mind with Organization. 196 

or individuals, and their qualities of form, size, weight, 
color, order, number, and locality ; they give ideas of 
motion or action, of comparison and causation, and of 
time and tune — or melody and language ; and in pro- 
portion as their material organs are well-developed, are 
our relative powers of thought. They may be partially 
well-developed, giving genius in one direction ; or they 
may be all well-developed, giving general power of 
mind. We have known the organ of ITumber so large 
in an idiotic boy that he could calculate faster mentally 
than a first-rate arithmetician could on a slate ; and in 
the same way it may be said of all the intellectual fac- 
ulties — they may be relatively well-developed, or rela- 
tively deficient. Thus Form with Oonstructiveness and 
Imitation gives a talent for drawing. Add Individu- 
ality, Color, and Ideality — it makes a portrait painter ; 
and with the addition to these of Locality, it makes a 
landscape painter. If any of these organs are deficient, 
success in these departments must not be expected ; al- 
though, unless they are very deficient, mediocrity may 
be attained by careful training. So of all the faculties ; 
but there can not be a more fatal mistake than to sup- 
pose, that because the powers of the mind are strong in 
one direction, they are equally strong in all ; what is 
true of the organ of Number in the idiotic calculator, 
may be true with respect to the other faculties in other 
people ; some of them may be, and often are, in an 
idiotic state, however relatively strong and active other 
faculties may be. A person may thus be very learned, 
may read a great deal and recollect almost all he reads, 
may have great power of expression, both in speech 
and writing, and yet, for want of a full development of 



196 The Education of the Feelings, 

the reflective faculties, his judgment may be rarely 
sound, and Ms opinion on many subjects worthless. 
Yet the person himself is seldom conscious of this ; his 
opinion of himself being guided by the strength of the 
powers he has and the relative development of his Self- 
esteem ; neither is the world generally any wiser, for its 
opinion is influenced by his learning and the noise he 
is able to make with it. There is an old proverb, how- 
ever, used by Chaucer, which says : " The greatest 
clerks are not always the wisest men." It is asserted 
by Dr. Wilson, the author of a very elaborate work on 
the subject, and conflrmed, we believe, by Dr. Brew- 
ster, that as large a proportion as one person in every 
eighteen is color-blind in some marked degree, and that 
one in every fifty -five confounds red with green. This 
is owing to the small size of the organ of Color, and all 
the other organs are liable to be relatively as imperfect. 
Yet few, we are told, are conscious of their color-blind- 
ness ; and fewer still admit that there can be any defect 
in any other departments of their mental vision, or that 
they are not quite as capable, naturally, of judging upon 
all subjects as the most perfect organizations around 
them. 

The world, then, may be said to be manufactured 
vrithin us with a perfection and vividness proportion- 
ate to the size and quality of our organs, and to no two 
persons, therefore, can it possibly appear alike, inasmuch 
as the organizations of no two persons are alike. " The 
eye sees only what it brings with it the power to see," 
both by natural power and cultivation ; and as we all 
differ in feeling as well as in intellectual capacity, it is 
sheer arrogance to dogmatize and lay down the law for 



Connection of Mind loith Organization. 197 

others. A wise man will know that it is impossible for 
him to say more than how lie feels, or lioio thim^gs ap- 
pear to him^ on any subject ; and to insist npon other 
people feeling and thinking the same, is mere folly. 

In estimating the effect of the organization through 
which the mind acts, almost as much depends upon 
quality or temperament as upon the size of the organ, 
and there is as much difference in nervous susceptibility 
between individuals of the same race, size, and form as 
between the thick-skinned rhinoceros and the fiery and 
excitable race-horse. Genius, in particular directions, 
may be caused by the extraordinary size of particular 
organs ; but genius generally results from the superior 
natural degree of cerebral excitability. The power of 
correct appreciation, of creation, of imagination — the 
inspirations of the poet and the madman — are but 
different degrees of exaltation of the same faculties — 
different temperings of the same spring : 

*' The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 
Are of imagination all compact 1 " 

says Shakespeare. Plato says : '' The greatest blessings 
we have spring from madness, when granted by Divine 
bounty." It is evident he means, when arising from 
exalted temperament ; for he says : " He who without 
the madness of the Muses approaches the gates of poesy, 
under the persuasion that by means of art he can be- 
come an efficient poet, doth himself fail in his purpose 
and his poetry, being that of a sane man ; he is thrown 
into the shade by the poetry of such as are mad." 

" We do not hear that Memnon's statue gave forth its 
melody at all under the rushing of the mightiest wind, 



( 



198 The Education of the Feelings. 

or in response to any other influence, divine or human, 
than certain short-lived sunbeams of morning ; and we 
must learn to accommodate ourselves to the discovery 
that some of those cunningly-fashioned instruments 
called human souls (dependent in this life both on or- 
ganization and temperament), have only a very limited 
range of music, and will not vibrate in the least under 
a touch that fills others with tremulous rapture or quiv- 
ering agony." ^ 

Admitting, then, that vigor of function is in propor- 
tion to the health and size of the material organ with 
which the mind is connected, and that although educa- 
tion may do much, still more depends upon the perfec- 
tion of the instrument, the deductions from these 
prejnises are of obvious importance. 

Education we have defined to be " the developing 
and perfecting of all the faculties which make a com- 
plete man," and the first requisite is a large and healthy 
and well-formed brain. Education here must begin 
before birth, for much depends upon the mental and 
bodily constitution of the parents. Important as this 
is, little attention has yet been paid to it. What little 
knowledge we have on this subject has been hitherto 
devoted to the animal creation. Marriages are made 
with reference to almost every circumstance but the 
healthy mental constitution of the offspring. If a license 
be procured. Providence is supposed to take care of all 
the rest ; and yet we are required to study God's laws 
and to act in accordance with them as much in this de- 
partment as in all others ; and, in fact, we may say be- 



* Adam Bede. 



Connection of Mind with Organization. 199 

fore all others, if we would advance rapidly toward true 
humanity. Miraculous intervention will no more save 
us here than elsewhere from the effects of our own ig- 
norance and folly. Biography shows that most men of 
note in the world have owed much of their celebrity to 
their mothers, who have all been remarkable in their 
sphere. 

Another essential point to be observed in relation to 
the connection of mind with organization, is that the 
brain develops itself in a given order; certain parts 
arriving at maturity before others. The selfish or ani- 
mal feelings and the perceptive faculties come first to 
maturity, next the moral feelings, and last of all the 
reasoning powers are developed. We should, in conse- 
quence, be very careful not to overwork any part of the 
brain or mental faculty which is but imperfectly devel- 
oped. Great and serious mischief has arisen, and is 
constantly arising, from the neglect of this law, and 
from ignorance of the gradual steps by which our fac- 
ulties are unfolded ; it should be our effort, therefore, 
to assist, and not to force their growth by giving them 
more exercise than their immature state will bear. 

Dr. Caldwell, in his valuable work on Physical Edu- 
cation, observes: "Parents are often too anxious that 
their children should have a knowledge of the alpha- 
bet, of spelling, reading, geography, and other branches 
of school-learning at a very early age. This is worse 
than tempting them to walk too early, because the or- 
gan likely to be injured by it is much more important 
than the muscles and bones of the lower extremities. 
It may do irreparable mischief to the brain. That viscus 
is yet too immature and feeble to sustain fatigue. Until 



200 The Edxication of the Feelings, 

from the sixth to the eighth year of hfe, the seventh 
being, perhaps, the proper medium, all its energies are 
necessary for its own healthy development and of that 
of the other portions of the system. ISTor ought they 
to be directed by serious study to any other purpose. 
True, exercise is as essential to the health and vigor of 
the 1)rain at that time of life as at any other ; but it 
should be the general and pleasurable exercise of obser- 
vation and action. It ought not to be the compulsory 
exercise of tasks. Early prodigies of mind rarely attain 
mature distinction. The reason is plain ; their brains 
are injured by premature toil, and their general health 
impaired. From an unwise attempt to convert at once 
their flowery spring into a luxuriant summer, that sum- 
mer too often never arrives. The blossom withers ere 
the fruit is formed." 

Parents, then, must be satisfied to wait for the effects 
of the best regulated system of training until all the 
faculties are matured. If a child of early age be selfish, 
it is not a sufficient reason for its continuance in selfish- 
ness after the period when the moral feelings, owing to 
greater physical advancement, act with greater strength ; 
neither if a child be dull and stupid, intellectually con- 
sidered, is it necessary that he should remain so after the 
period when the reasoning powers are fully developed. 
"We can not look for the full fruits of judicious mental 
cultivation until after fifteen or sixteen years of age, 
when all the feelings and mental faculties will generally 
have attained to a fair degree of their natural growth 
and strength. The process of training which we have 
advocated for children may not be so easy as the con- 
signing them early to school ; but if parents can resolve 



GonneGtion of Mind with Organization, 201 

to undertake so much present trouble — and surely they 
ought not to shrink from it — if they will work slowly 
and patiently, and not expect to reap at once the fruits 
of their labors, they may reckon upon a harvest which 
in future years shall recompense their cares a hundred- 
fold. 

An important result of the union of the mind with 
organization is the inflaence of the passions — of each 
feeling or group of feelings — upon the health of the 
body, and upon the duration of life, as well as upon our 
habitual cheerfulness and happiness. It is the charac- 
teristic of the propensities or selfish feelings never to 
be satisfied ; and, as to produce the same excitement, 
the drunkard is obliged each day to increase the dram, 
so all our propensities. Ambition, Love of Power, Love 
of Acquisition, etc., crave increased excitement to pro- 
duce the same pleasure ; until at last, with advanced 
age, such sources of enjoyment fail, and they who have 
trusted to them find, with Solomon, that " all is vanity 
ind vexation of spirit." This is the most favorable 
course of the selfish feelings when successful and 
pleasurably excited; but when unsuccessful in their 
aims, and painfully excited, then they seem to diffuse 
a poison throughout the whole system, to darken the 
mind and impair the bodily health. Unsuccessful love, 
betrayed or slighted friendship, blighted ambition, etc., 
and the host of ill-feelings and passions they raise up, 
such as envy, hatred, malice, jealousy, anger, fear, grief, 
all act injuriously on the bodily system. Each passion 
or sentiment has its own way of affecting the body, as 
it is painfully or pleasurably excited. Pale with fear, 
sick with love, and other similar modes of expression 



202 ' The Education of the Feelings. 

are not merely metaphorical, any more than affections 
of the heart, bowels of compassion, the breathlessness 
of surprise, and others ; but are all truly indicative of 
parts or functions of the body intimately affected by 
mental states. The circulation, the digestion, the heart, 
the liver, the kidneys, are all influenced and disturbed 
nnder the excitement of passion or strong emotion. 
These functions also, when disturbed, re-act upon the 
mind. Thus, \)v, Eeid says : ^' He whose disposition to 
goodness can resist the influence of dyspepsia, and 
whose .career of philanthropy is not liable to be checked 
by an obstruction in the hepatic [liver] organs, may 
boast of much deeper and firmer virtue than falls to the 
ordinary lot of human nature.'' The propensities are 
all liable to increase in activity till they become pas- 
sions, and the temperature of passion is too hot to allow 
of the existence, much less the growth and healthy de- 
velopment of the numerous small, quiet, but not the 
less necessary daily virtues. Any object of desire, when 
such desire amounts to passion — the etymology of which 
word is suffering — whether successful or unsuccessful, 
wears both mind and body. Hope and fear are then 
alternatively so strong that we may bid farewell to all 
mental tranquillity ; and when want of success brings 
disappointment, health gives way, and the springs of 
life are poisoned : 

"Thus the warm youth, 
Whom love deludes into his thorny wilds, 
Through flowery, tempting paths, or leads a life 
Of fevered rapture, or of cruel care ; 
His brightest aims extinguished all, and all 
His lively moments running down to waste." 

—Thomson. 



Connection of Mind with Organization. 203 

On the contrary, a very different state of both body 
and mind attends the activity of the unselfish feelings. 
When they habitually predominate, a constant and al- 
most unvarying cheerfulness is the result — a cheerful- 
ness which no grief or trouble or misfortune can long 
depress. Mind and body then work smoothly together, 
and the good or bad events that fortune brings upon us 
are felt according to the qualities that we^ not they^ 
possess. The subjective or internal overpowers the ob- 
jective or external, and such persons are said to be con- 
stitutionally happy. Poets and philosophers all bear 
witness to this habitually sunshiny cast of mind ; thus. 
Pope says : 

** What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, 
The soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy, 
Is virtue's prize." 

" Love, hope, and joy," says Haller, " promote pre- 
spiration, quicken the pulse, promote the circulation, in- 
crease the appetite, and facilitate the cure of diseases." 
"A constant serenity, supported by hope or cheerfulness 
arising from a good conscience, is the most healthful 
of all affections of the mind," says Dr. Mackenzie ; and 
again, Dr. Sweetzer says : " Let me remark, that all 
those mental avocations which are founded in benevo- 
lence, or whose end or aim are the good of mankind, 
being from their very nature associated with agreeable 
moral excitement, and but little mingled with the evil 
feelings— as envy, jealousy, hatred — must necessarily 
diffuse a kindly influence throughout the constitution." 

If, then, we trust to find our happiness in the indul- 
gence of the selfish feelings, even if successful in our 



204 The Education of the Feelings, 

aims, the happiness is but transient; and as life ad- 
vances we find only vacuity or disappointment, and our 
way to the tomb is cold, dark, joyless, and merely vege- 
tative. On the contrary, where the moral, the aesthetic, 
the religious feelings have been duly cultivated and 
predominate, happiness, not so intense, but more en- 
during — calm, tranquil, and serene — increases as we 
grow older ; passion has ceased, the propensities are all 
quiet or under due control; health and contentment 
reign in body and mind ; and at last, in the " soul's calm 
sunshine," we fall asleep. 

The object, then, of moral training is the habitual 
predominance and activity of the higher aud unselfish 
feelings; and we can not begin this most important 
portion of education too early. 



SECTION lY. 

THE EDUCATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES. 

The education of the Intellectual faculties is no part 
of the object of the present work. I shall make, there- 
fore, only two or three remarks that appear to us of 
considerable importance. 

Memory, Imagination, Perception, Conception, Judg- 
ment, are not primitive mental faculties, but mere 
modes of action of aU the primitive faculties, and the 
intellect can only be properly trained by appealing to 
the primitive faculties themselves. If all the mental 
faculties were cultivated in the same direct way and 
with the same assiduity as Tune, we should soon see a 
different result to the one usually attained. 

"We must be careful not to lose the end of the culti- 
vation of the intellect in the means we take to acquire 
it. Thus, as Mr. Combe says, we must have " an early 
conviction that man is made for action ; that he is placed 
in a theater of agents, which he must direct, or to which 
he must accommodate his conduct; that everything in 
the world is regulated by laws instituted by the Crea- 
tor ; that all objects that exist, animate and inanimate, 
have received definite qualities and constitutions, and 
that good arises from their proper, and evil from their 
improper, application." These are the proper objects 
or ends of knowledge, and it must always be borne in 

(205) 



206 The Education of the Feelings. 

mind that reading, writing, arithmetic, languages, and 
mathematics, disconnected from their application to 
realities, though highly useful in exercising the mental 
faculties and in preparing the mind to receive knowl- 
edge, are not 'knowledge^ but the mere instruments of 
acquiring it, and it is only in such a light that they 
should be regarded. If a boy's time and attention be 
engrossed by the acquisition of these mere instruments 
of learning, as has been too much the case hitherto, it 
is likely he may lose all taste for the knowledge which 
they are to fit him for acquiring. Let him be intro- 
duced into the kingdom of nature itself, and he will 
imbibe a taste for and love of knowledge, which will 
always remain with him, and which will make him 
eager to acquire the means of obtaining it. 

The mind having become acquainted with the exter- 
nal things — their properties, their relations; being 
stored with the facts of natural history and science; 
having observed the various operations that are going 
on — ^physical, chemical, and vital ; it will begin to in- 
quire into their causes, and the reflective powers will 
come into more especial operation. The study of sci- 
ence may now be entered upon, the knowledge acquired 
arranged under its proper heads, and each fact placed 
in the department to which it belongs. A clear and 
concise arrangement for this purpose has been given 
by Dr. Arnott, in the " Table of Science," contained in 
the Introduction to his " Physics." It is of great con- 
sequence that both teachers and pupils should carry in 
their minds a clear conception of the general field of 
human knowledge, and of the comparative importance 
of its several subdivisions j and perhaps^, as he affirms, 




REV. JOSEPH COOK. 

INTFXT,ECTUAL FACULTIES. 



PLATE XXVIII. 



The tntellectual Faculties, 



20t 



this is the most valuable single acquirement that the 
mind can make. It is because I am so decidedly of 
this opinion that I have introduced any allusion to the 
Intellect in this work. The field of knowledge gets 
larger and larger, and young minds staii; without any 
chart for their guidance through the weary waste. It 
is most important to all further attainments that we 
should first possess ourselves of the simple fundamental 
principles in all the great departments of science. Dr. 
Amott's table enables us to get a clear view of where 
these are to be found ; we shall therefore give it here, 
with the substance of the valuable remarks attached 
to it : 

TABLE OF SCIENCE. 



1. Physics. 


2. Chemistry. 


Mechanics, 


Simple substances, 


Hydrostatics, 


Mineralogy, 


Hydraulics, 


Geology, 


Pneumatics, 


Pharmacy, 


Acoustics, 


Brewing, 


Heat, 


Dyeing, 


Optics, 


Tanning, 


Electricity, 


etc. 


Astronomy, 




etc. 




3. Life. 


4. Mind. 




Intellect. 


Vegetable Physiology, 


Reasoning, 


Botany, 


Logic, 


Horticulture, 


Language, 


Agriculture, 


Education, 


etc. 


etc. 



SOS Tke Education of the FeeUngB. 

Motives to Action. 
Animal Physiology, Emotions and Passions, 

Zoology, Justice, 

Anatomy, Morals, 

Pathology, Government, 

Medicine, Political economy, 

etc. etc. 

Natural Theology. 



5. Science of Quantity. 
Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, etc. 

" Supposing description of particulars or Natural 
History^ to be studied along with the different parts of 
the System of Science sketched in the table, there will 
be included in the scheme the whole knowledge of the 
universe which man can acquire by the exercise of his 
own powers ; that is to say, which he can acquire inde- 
pendently of a supernatural Revelation. And on this 
knowledge all his arts are founded ; some of them on 
the single part of Physics, as that of the machinist, ar- 
chitect, mariner, carpenter, etc. ; some on Chemistry 
(which includes Physics), as that of the miner, glass- 
maker, dyer, brewer, etc. ; and some on Physiology 
(which includes much of Physics and Chemistry), as 
that of the scientific gardener or botanist, agriculturist, 
zoologist, etc. The business of teachers of all kinds, 
and of governors, advocates, linguists, etc., respects 
chiefly the science of mind. The art of medicine re- 
quires in its professor a comprehensive knowledge of 
all the departments. 

" As the sciences are all intimately connected with 
each other, great advantage must result from studying 



Tke Intellectual Faculties, 209 

them in the order above given — for Chemistry can not 
be well understood without a previous knowledge of 
Physics / and Life^ consisting of Animal and Vegeta- 
ble Physiology, is a superstructure on the other two, 
and can not be studied independently of them. This 
method of proceeding, therefore, will prevent repeti- 
tions and anticipations, and considerably diminish the 
labor of acquirement. 

" It thus appears that the Science of Nature may be 
considered as a continuous and closely-connected system 
pf history, which, to be clearly understood, must be 
studied according to the natural order of its parts, just 
as any common history must be read in the natural or- 
der of its paragraphs. But so little has this been known, 
or at least acted upon, in general, that perhaps no other 
human plans, formed with one object, have been so 
dissimilar and inconsistent as the common plans of ed- 
ucation. 

" The notions on education prevalent in the world 
until recently, have been as erroneous with respect to 
the comparative importance of different branches of 
knowledge as with respect to the order of study. Thus, 
at many of our famed Schools, and even Universities, 
the attention has been directed almost exclusively 
either to Languages and Logic^ or to Abstract Mathe- 
matics i the preceptors seeming to forget that these 
objects have no value but in their application to Phys- 
ics, Chemistry, Life, and Mind. The reason for be- 
stowing much attention on the Greek and Roman lan- 
guages was good some centuries ago, because then no 
book of value existed which was not written in one of 
these languages ; but now the case is completely re- 



210 The Education of the Feelings. 

versed, for he wlio learns almost any matter of science 
from old books is learning error, or, at the least, knowl- 
edge far short of modern erudition. As to the higher 
mathematics, again, while they merit great honor, as 
being the instrument by which many nseful discoveries 
have been made, and the conjectures of powerful minds 
have been confirmed, still, a very deep investigation of 
them is neither possible to the generality of men, nor, 
if it were so, would it be of "utility. The mode of pro- 
ceeding, then, to which we have alluded, is just as if a 
man to whom permission were given to enter and use 
a magnificent garden, on condition of his procuring a 
key to open the gate, and certain measures to estimate 
the riches contained within, should waste his whole life 
on the road in polishing one key and procuring others 
of different materials and workmanship, or in preparing 
a multiplicity of unneoessaiy measures. This and many 
similar errors arise from persons not being in general 
taught to carry in their minds a clear conception of the 
general field of human knowledge, and so of the com- 
parative importance of the different subdivisions — the 
possession of which conception is perhaps the most val- 
uable single acquirement which the mind can make. 
He whose view is bounded by the limits of one or two 
small departments, will probably have very false ideas 
even of them, but he certainly will of other parts, and 
of the whole ; so as to be constantly exposed to commit 
errors hurtful to himself or to others. His mind, com- 
pared to the well-ordered mind of a properly educated 
man, is what the misshapen body of a mechanic, crip- 
pled by his trade, is to the body of the active mount- 
aineer or other specimen of perfect human nature. 



The IntelleGtual Faouities. Sll 

" We now proceed to remark, that by arranging sci- 
ence according to its natural relations, and therefore so 
as to avoid repetitions and anticipations, a very com- 
plete system might be exhibited in small bulk, viz, in 
five volumes, of which the separate titles wonld be, 
1st, Physics ; 2d, Chemistry / 3d, Organic Life^ or 
Physiology I 4z\h^ Mind ; and, Z\h^ Measures or Math- 
ematics. From snch works, with less trouble than it 
now costs to obtain familiarity with one new language, 
a man might obtain a general acquaintance with science. 
And such is the close relation of the departments of 
science with each other, that consummate skill in any 
one may generally be acquired more easily, by first 
studying the whole in a general way, and then applying 
particularly to that one, than by fixing the attention 
from the beginning upon the one more exclusively. 
The study of Anatomy thus becomes very easy to him 
who has first studied Physics. 

"Were such elementary treatises once in existence, 
they might be maintained complete by a periodical in- 
corporation of new discoveries ; and if furnished with 
correct and copious references, they might form an in- 
dex to the whole existing mass of knowledge. This 
Booh of Nature would be of more value to the world 
than any other conceivable institution for education, 
for it would convert the minds of millions into intel- 
lectual organs of advancement; while in the crowd, 
many would probably be found in every age as highly 
endowed by nature as any that have yet appeared along 
the extended stream of time." 

It is scarcely possible that an individual thus intro- 
duced to the world and to himself should not acquire a 



2l2 The EdjUGation of the t^eeUrigs. 

taste for knowledge and a thirst for information. Tlie 
principles of science are now so much simplified that 
they may be made comprehensible even to ordinary 
understandings, and neither sex should be excluded 
from the intellectual tastes and enjoyments to which 
such knowledge must lead. 

The Science of Physics^ or Natural Philosophy^ ex- 
plains the causes of the phenomena of the material 
world, and furnishes never-failing subjects of interest- 
ing inquiry; all the ordinary occupations of life, "all 
that is going on in the world of nature around us, are, 
in fact, series of experiments in Natural Philosophy, 
which may be explained and made interesting to chil- 
dren at a very early age. The reasoning powers may 
be thus directed to all the changes that are going on 
around us, the causes of most of which are easy of ex- 
planation, and may be illustrated without difficulty by 
simple experiments. 

Chemistry shows us how all the different kinds of 
matter go to form the endless variety of substances on 
the face of the earth. 

Life introduces us to the animal and vegetable king- 
doms, with their different divisions and classifications. 
It explains the principles of vegetation, and gives to 
the garden, to the flovv^ery mead, and to every hedge 
and bank a tenfold interest. It introduces us to the 
wonderful structure of our own frames, to that of ani- 
mals and their comparative anatomy, to the laws of 
health, to all the phenomena of sensation, self-motion, 
growth, decay, death, etc., and to all that we as yet 
know of their causes. 

The Science of Quantity^ or Mathematics^ gives us 



The Intellectual Faoulties. 213 

rules for applying the measures or standards that ex- 
press quantity, and for comparing all kinds of quanti- 
ties with each other. 

The study of Mind^ the most important of all, intro- 
duces us to ourselves ; it makes known to us our feel- 
ings and intellectual faculties — their character and nat- 
ure ; the end they are intended to answer, i. ^., their 
use, and it also explains their abuse ; it shows their 
proper and legitimate sphere of action, and the relation 
they bear to things and circumstances ; and, ultimately, 
how they may all be used so as to insure to their pos- 
sessor the largest return of happiness of which his nat- 
ure is capable. This knowledge is simple, as we have 
endeavored to show in the foregoing part of this work, 
and may early be brought home to the mind of a child ; 
he may be made to understand the nature of his facul- 
ties; he may be led to see clearly the distinction be- 
tween the selfish feelings and those that tend to the 
happiness of others, and thus learn to analyze the mo- 
tives of his actions, and become ashamed of such as are 
purely selfish. No kind of knowledge can be so calcu- 
lated to prevent the abuse of the faculties, and to as- 
sist the teacher in moral training, as such a knowledge 
of self. 

This is a sketch of the education which the Intel- 
lectual Faculties must receive, if we would exercise 
them all and upon their proper objects. In this man- 
ner the nature and properties of things — their relation 
to ourselves and happiness — will be learned, and in a 
manner that can not fail of being pleasurable rather 
than painful and compulsory. Dr. Arnott beautifully 
observes, with reference to the department of Physics: 



214 The Education of the Feelings, 

" The greatest sum of knowledge acquired witli the 
least trouble is, perhaps, that whicli comes with the 
study of the few simple truths of Physics. To the man 
who understands these, very many phenomena, which 
to the uninformed appear prodigies, are only beautiful 
illustrations of his fundamental knowledge ; and this 
he carries about with him, not as an oppressive weight, 
but as a charm supporting the w^eight of other knowl- 
edge, and enabling him to add to his valuable store 
every new fact of importance which may offer itself. 
With such a principle of arrangement, his information, 
instead of resembling loose stones or rubbish thrown 
together in confusion, becomes as a noble edifice, of 
correct proportions and firm contexture, and is acquir- 
ing greater strength and consistency with the experi- 
ence of every succeeding day. It has been a common 
prejudice that persons thus instructed in general laws, 
had their attention too much divided and could know 
nothing perfectly. But the very reverse is true ; for 
general knowledge renders all particular knowledge 
more clear and precise. The ignorant man may be 
said to have charged his hundi'ed hooks of knowledge— 
to use a rude simile — ^with single objects ; while the in- 
formed man makes each support a long chain, to which 
thousands of kindred and useful things are attached. 
The laws of Philosophy may be compared to keys which 
give admission to the most delightful gardens that fancy 
can picture ; or to a magic power which unveils the 
face of the universe and discloses endless charms of 
which ignorance never dreams. The informed man, 
in the world, may be said to be always surrounded by 
what is known and friendly to him, while the ignorant 



The Intellectual Faculties. 215 

man is as one in a land of strangers and enemies A 
man reading a thousand .olumef of ordina'books t 
agreeable pastime, ^vill receive onlj vague imm'ssio„s 
but he who studies the methodized Bool, of TaZj 

Us att'e'ntion to^t end ofts^d^^^' ^"^""^^'^ ^^^"^^^ 



CONCLUSION. 

It lias been the endeavor of this work to associate 
the rules of practical education with the principles of 
what we believe to be the truest philosophy of the hu- 
man mind that has yet been obtained. Phrenology, it 
is true, is yet an imperfect science. In its details it has 
yet to undergo many corrections ; it needs much of ex- 
pansion, and much of simplification. We beheve, how- 
ever, that its delineation of the powers of the mind is 
so faithful and comprehensive, that it may legitimately 
be made the basis of a system of education. And we 
are most desirous of communicating our own strong 
con^dction that the main doctrine of Phrenology — 
namely, that the mind is connected with the organiza- 
tion of the brain, and is strong, both in intellect and 
feeling, in proportion as the brain is perfect, and that, 
consequently, the mind can only be improved by im- 
proving the cerebral organization — is essential to a right 
understanding of the work of education. This work 
can never be effectually performed till every one of the 
faculties of the mind receives its distinct exercise and 
cultivation ; the knowledge of the anatomy of the mind 
is as necessary to .every parent and instructor as that 
of the body to the physical operator. It is of little use 
to treat vaguely of the metaphysical subtleties of the 
Will, the Memory, the Imagination, We must pene- 
(216) 



Conclusion. 21Y 

trate to the elements of whicli the human character is 
constituted, that we may afford to each that peculiar 
kind of nourishment and exercise by which alone these 
individual functions can be developed. If human be- 
ings were all born according to the type of perfect hu- 
manity, one rule of education would apply to all ; the 
same spiritual food would be assimilated \>y each, and 
nourish him to the full measure of his mental stature. 
But we know that infants are born with the miserable 
consequences of the sins of their progenitors stamped 
upon their constitutions. Minds are crippled and dis- 
torted as well as limbs, and as it would be of no use 
urging a child to walk if he were lame, or to see if he 
were blind, it is equally useless to preach the doctrines 
of morality and piety where there is no intellect to 
comprehend, nor moral nature to feel them. There are 
indeed the elements of that comprehension and feeling 
in every human being, but they may be so small and 
weak as to be incapable of healthy action. Must we, 
then, cease to preach righteousness to them ? By no 
means ; give them every chance, by placing the spirit- 
ual f obd within their reach, in case the stimulus of ex- 
traordinary circumstances should quicken their powers 
to the capacity of assimilating it ; but we must at the 
same time act upon their lower natures by direct means 
of repression and encouragement adapted to the sepa- 
rate requirements of each of their excessive or defect- 
ive organs. If there be but one portion of the brain in 
excess, or greatly deficient, there will be a mysterious 
difficulty in education, for which an experienced phre- 
nologist will account at a glance ; and surely artificial 
aid can be rendered more effectively with a clear knowl- 
30 



218 TJie Education of the Feelings, 

edge of the evil tlian by working in the dark. Small, 
indeed, is the aid that can be rendered, and it is another 
great use of Phrenology to prevent the discouraging 
disappointment which attends so many benevolent, but 
ill'directed efforts to improve mankind. 

It seems to many degrading to the mind to speak of 
its connection with material organization ; but how can 
that be if it is ordained by the Divine Creator? We 
have only to watch and endeavor to imitate His mode 
of operating and not intrude our prejudices, which are 
the fruits of ignorance. It is seen through the whole 
analogy of nature that higher forms of being are devel- 
oped out of lower ; mind appears as the crown of crea- 
tion, only associated with the greatest perfection of 
material organization. We do not say God could not 
have given a soul to a stone, but He has given it only 
to a substance of tl,ie most delicate and intricate con- 
struction. The more perfect that construction, the 
more perfect is the mind. What the mind is, we yet 
know not, nor of what development it is capable ; but 
we know that it can grow ; it can advance to higher 
stages of being only through the perfect action of all its 
present functions, as exercised through, and by means 
of, its material organs. 

Let our efforts, then, be first directed to growing a 
healthy body and brain — mens sana in sano corjpore — 
and when we have a healthy and strong organ, then 
will be time enough to set them seriously to work. It 
will be better that what is usually called " schooling " 
should not commence before ten years of age, and that 
there should be no steady continuous application before 
twelve. From twelve to fifteen or sixteen years of age, 



Conclusion. 219 

a boy will learn much better all that is required from 
him at school, than if his faculties had been previously 
tasked when they were yet in a weak and immature 
state. Keep children healthy and hajpjpy up to that age, 
and we need have no solicitude about their learaing. 

It will be seen that by Education we mean something 
very different from what is often understood by it. It 
is usually thought to be that which will best enable a 
person to get along in the world, which will make him 
a good man of business — clever in his profession — to 
the end that he may obtain wealth and place, and the 
consideration in society of which they are the means, 
without regard to the relation which these things bear 
to real happiness. Our object, on the contrary, is the 
development and proper direction of all the facidties, 
and especially to give the predominance to those that 
distinguish us from the lower animals. In proportion 
as our system shall tend to the advancement of the 
higher humanities, shall we secure the happiness of the 
pupil. Happiness derived solely from the propensities 
is not above that w-hich the brutes enjoy. The major- 
ity of mankind seek wealth. This is their poetry and 
their religion ; for what a man really worships — what 
he most reveres — is, in fact, his god. We may have 
all that wealth can bestow, yet, under the dominion of 
the propensities and merely self-regarding sentiments, 
we shall be constrained to confess with Solomon, that 
all is vanity. That there is still so much misery in the 
world is owing to this fact, that our aims are misdi- 
rected, and that we seek our happiness in the wTong 
direction. We must ascend step by step toward the 
development of our higher nature, and as we rise we 



220 The Education of the Feelings. 

shall become more and more independent of wealth 
and of the Av^orld. From the selfish and self-regard- 
ing feelings we rise to a sense of what is due to others ; 
the requirements of our moral nature come into play ; 
we have pleasure in our duty and in doing that which 
is right and kind. The next step is toward the JEs- 
thetic ; but in order to cultivate the poetry of our nat- 
ure, to have a full sense of the beautiful, we must be 
temperate in all things, especially in mere animal grat- 
iiications ; we must emancipate ourselves from the do- 
minion of the propensities; for we must avoid all dis- 
turbing influences, and this is impossible so long as any 
of the lower feelings predominate. Through the Moral 
and the ^Esthetic we reach the last step in our progress 
— a strong and well-directed Religious feeling. We 
become convinced that God is our Father, and that w^e 
have but to learn and to obey^ and thence comes a Faith 
equal to all trial — a Faith amounting to certainty, that 
under the Providence of God all things must work to- 
gether for good. 

The great secret of happiness is constant and well- 
directed occupation. Enjoyments based upon the self- 
ish feelings are always liable to fail ; but when depend- 
ent upon our higher feelings, if deprived of one thing, 
we can always turn to another — a hundred other sources 
of happiness being open to us. The enjoyments from 
the selfish feelings grow weaker and weaker with each 
repetition ; those from the higher, stronger and stronger ; 
and each year thus adds to our capabilities of enjoy- 
ment. The happiness from the higher feelings is al- 
ways cheap; like air, sunshine, and water, it every- 
where^ surrounds us, for it is what we are — not what 



GoQiclusion. 221 

our circumstances are — upon which it depends. It is 
true, the estate may not be ours, with the care and 
trouble which its management entails, and the pride 
and vanity which its possession gratifies ; but the land- 
scape is ours, and we are spiritually in possession, if not 
materially. As Emerson says : " The charming land- 
scape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up 
of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, 
Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But 
none of them owns the landscape. There is a property 
in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can 
integrate all the parts — that is, the poet. This is the 
best part of these men's farms, yet to this their land- 
deeds give them no title." 

** If solid happiness we prize, 
Within our breast the jewel lies, 
And they are fools who roam." 

If we would be happy, it must be in the alternate 
exercise of all our faculties upon their legitimate ob- 
jects ; and the Creator has placed this source of the 
highest happiness more within the reach of all than they 
who imagine it to consist in wealth — or what mere 
wealth can bestow — would at first suppose. It must be 
confessed that we rate the civilization of the present 
age as stiU low and barbaric. The great mass of man- 
kind are still in ignorance and poverty and slavery. It 
is true, they are emancipated from the slavery of man 
to man ; but they are no less the slaves of the greatest 
of all taskmasters — their necessities ; and the majority 
of both rich and poor are still under the dominion of 
their propensities ; and trusting to the selfish feelings 



222 The Education of the Feelings, 

alone, or mainly, for their happiness. From ignorance 
of their phj^sical and organic structure, they are contin- 
ually pushing the indulgence of such feelings beyond 
the bounds of health, and thns entailing numerous evils 
upon themselves, society, and their offspring. From 
the inordinate pursuit of riches, and the senseless de- 
sire of that distinction to which wealth gives birth, 
arise a vast load of the evils which afflict them ; and 
while a few obtain these objects of ambition, thou- 
sands drag out a miserable existence. 

But everywhere we see the dawn of a better day. 
On all sides are the signs of rapid development. It 
has taken thousands of years to arrive at our present 
stage, and it may perhaps take thousands more to bring 
man to the perfection of which his nature is capable ; 
but hundreds will probably be sufficient to place him 
in a very advanced position to any which he has hith- 
erto occupied. Let us not, however, be too sanguine, 
for wo have to await patiently the growth of the mate- 
rial organs upon which the strength of the higher men- 
tal feelings depends. If all things were favorable to 
this growth, it must still take many generations to reach 
the desired point by the mass of mankind. It is not 
aristocratic or democratic institutions, neither monarch- 
ical nor republican, that measure progress, but this 
growth of the higher mental faculties. The civilization 
of antiquity was the advancement of the few and the 
slavery of the many — in Greece thirty thousand free- 
men and three hundred thousand slaves — and it passed 
away. True civilization must be measured by the prog- 
ress, not of a class or nation, but of all men. God ad- 
mits none to advance alone. Individuals in advance 



Conclusion, 223 

become martyrs ; nations in advance, the prey of the 
barbarian. Only as one family of man can we make 
true and durable progress. But man must exist as an 
animal before he can exist as a man ; his physical re- 
quirements must be satisfied before those of mind ; and 
hitherto it has taken the whole time and energies of 
the many to provide for their physical wants. Such 
wants have spread mankind over the whole globe; the 
brute and the savage have disappeared before the supe- 
rior race ; the black blood of the Torrid zone has been 
mixed with the white of the Temperate, and a race capa- 
ble of living and laboring under a zenith sun has been 
formed, and all seems to be preparing for a united move- 
ment onward. The elements have been pressed into 
our service, the powers of steam and electricity would 
appear boundless, and science has given man an almost 
unlimited control over nature. The trammels which des- 
potism has hitherto imposed upon body and mind have 
been in some cases thrown off, and constitutional liberty 
is rapidly and widely spreading. The steamship and 
railway, and mutual interests in trade and commerce, 
have united nation to nation, and the .press has minis- 
tered the progress of ideas which will tend to give one 
mind and simultaneous thought to the whole commu- 
nity. Power there is in plenty for the emancipation of 
the whole race ; since the steam-engine and machinery 
may be to the working-classes what they have hitherto 
been to those classes above them. All that is wanted 
is to know how to use these forces for the general good. 
The powers of production are enormous ; we have but 
to organize them^ and justly to distribute the produce. 
But this can not take place under the direction of the 



224: Tlie Education of the Feelings, 

selfish feelings alone. While we are scrambling only 
for individual good, physical science may advance, and 
our power over nature may increase, but mankind can 
make little progress. It is from within, now, that we 
must look for change ; for when education, based upon 
correct knowledge of our constitution, shall have raised 
the man, there will be found no impediment to the ad- 
vance of the whole race to all that is necessary for the 
enjoyment of the highest pleasures of which liis nature 
is susceptible. In proportion as the higher feelings of 
our nature gain strength and predominate, and the law 
of universal brotherhood is written — is recognized in 
spirit, not merely upon the tongue — in proportion, in 
fact, as real Christianity prevails, the petty distinctions 
of a savage age, which form the present scale of society, 
will disappear, and we shall no longer seek to be dis- 
tinguished by mere wealth and external advantages — 
gained at the expense of the excessive labor of others — 
but for the supremacy in us of all that distinguishes us 
from the brutes; for all that» saves toil, instead of in- 
creasing it, and that affords time to every man for the 
development of- high moral and intellectual power. 
Distinction will be based upon worth alone, and we 
shall bow to an aristocracy of nature, of which the pres- 
ent is but the symbol. If God gives us superior abil- 
ities, we shall not glorify ourselves, but Him, and hold 
them in trust for the good of mankind ; and wherever 
superior worth and talent are recognized, there will be 
acknowledged the future Noble — his badges not stars 
and garters, but the unmistakable expression of nobility 
which habitual obedience to that which is true and 
good and beautiful invariably bestows. 



Conclusion. 225 

Everywhere in the history of the race do we trace 
the divine law of Progress, that makes the coarser and 
baser material the foundation for the finer and nobler. 
In the early ages of the world, man's mental state re- 
quired to be fitted to his physical condition. He had 
the world to people and subdue ; he had to compel the 
stubborn earth to yield him sustenance ; he had to de- 
fend himself from the attacks of, and to prey in his 
turn upon, the animal tribes, who were its original oc- 
cupiers; and it was necessary, therefore, that great 
activity should pervade the self-preserving organs. 
Hence the excess of selfishness and what is called hu- 
man depravity. It would have been worse than useless 
to have given high moral, aesthetic, and intellectual 
aspirations when the sweat of the brow through the 
livelong day was required to supply the wants of the 
physical nature. Such aspirations ungratified could 
then, as now, only be a source of misery and discon- 
tent. As geologists show the formation of the earth to 
have been gradual, layer after layer being added, more 
perfect plants, and animals of a higher order of feeling 
and intelhgence appearing, as the world was prepared 
for them — so has the mind of man been developed, 
region added to region, as preparation has been made 
for its activity and legitimate exercise. And who shall 
say that even the best specimen of mankind has yet 
reached the last development which our race is to attain 
even upon this earth ? There appear to be rudimentary 
organs sufficiently developed in some individuals, when 
excited by mesmerism, to point to a higher order of 
intelligence than man has yet attained. They appear 
to put us in relation with the general mind of man- 
10* 



226 The Education of the Feelings. 

kind ; so that when steam, electricity, and machinery 
shall have annihilated material space and time, and 
when, also, we shall have made a great moral advance, 
it may be that these, at present, undeveloped faculties 
will enable us to become all-knowing and intelligent as 
regards what then exists, or ever has existed in the 
mind of man. But even if this were speculation, all 
history and experience — noting, as they do, an actual 
advance, notwithstanding much seeming local retrogres- 
sion — contirai the hope that we should indulge from 
the nature of man himself, and point to a time when 
the faculties he now imdoubtedly possesses being fully 
developed, and the powers of nature being brought to 
their greatest possible subservience, the earth shall be- 
come the scene of a happiness such as the imagination 
has hitherto conferred upon heaven alone. The very 
nature of man's reason, the necessity that exists for his 
choosing good and avoiding evil, all must act as uner- 
ringly toward his advancement, even as the laws of 
gravitation act to keep the earth together. Whatever 
is opposed to the jusfc and good must disappear, and the 
kingdom of God — the empire of the true and beautiful 
— in the end "universally prevail. 



IF^ 



^ 



A NEW WORK. 
FRESH, SEASONABLE, ADVAJfCED. 

BEAIiT AND MIND; 

OR, 

MENTAL SCIENCE CONSIDERED TN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PRIN- 
CIPLES OF PHRENOLOGY, AND IN RELATION TO MODERN 
PHYSIOLOGY. 

By HENfRT S, DEAYTOI, A.M., and JAMES MoNEILL. 

Illustrated iritli orer One Hundred Portraits and Diagrams. 

12mo, extra cloth ... - Price, $1.50. 

This contribution to the science of mind has been made in 
response to the demand of the time for a work embodying the 
g^and principles of Phrenoloor}% as they are understood and applied 
to-day by the advanced exponents of mental philosophy. The 
authors state in their Preface : ** In preparing this volume it has 
been the aim to meet an existing want, viz. : That of a treatise 
which not only gives the reader a complete view of the system of 
mental science known as Phrenolog)-, but also exhibits its relation 
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by standard authority." 

The work is divided into eighteen chapters, which are entitled 
as follows : 



CHAPTERS. 
1. 
II. 

III. 

IV. 
V. 



VI. 
VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 



General Principles. 

Of the Tempera- 
ments. 

Structure of the 
Brain and Skull. 

Classification of 
the Faculties. 

The Physico-Pre- 
servative, or Sel- 
fish Organs. 

Of the Intellect. 

The Semi-Intellect- 
ual Faculties. 

The Organs of the 
Social Functions. 

The Selfish Senti- 
ments. 

The Moral and Re- 
ligious Sentiments. 



CHAPTERS. 

XI. How TO Examine 

Heads. 
XII. How Character is 
Manifested. 

XIII. The Action of the 

Faculties. 

XIV. The Relation of 

Phrenology to 
Metaphysics and 
Education. 
XV. Value of Phrenolo- 
gy as an Art. 
XVI. Phrenology and 

Physiology. 
XVII. Objections and Con- 
firmations by the 
Physiologists. 
XVIII. Phrenology in Gen- 
eral Literature. 



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